Wrestling: Margin of victory was biggest surprise at Division III dual finals

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Last week I predicted South Hills would defeat Santa Fe in the Southern Section Division III dual meet championships by the ‘smallest of margins, something like 25-24.’

Well, I got the winning team right. And the losing team, too. As Meat Loaf would say, two out of three ain’t bad.

I wasn’t the only one caught off guard by the 51-14 blowout that actually took place.

‘I was shocked,’ South Hills Coach Robb Froh said. ‘I thought it would be a lot closer than that. The kids were just very focused.’

One of the keys to the huge margin of victory, Froh said, was the number of South Hills wrestlers who pinned their opponents (seven -- Eddie Franco in the opening match at 140, Ty Olson at 215, Greg Vargas at heavyweight, Dan Flores at 103, Kohl Crawford at 125, Joel Camacho at 130 and Jasper Morales at 135) compared to the number who got pinned by their opponents (none).

Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of the lopsided score is that two of the Huskies’ top wrestlers -- 119-pound wrestler Thomas Williams, a returning state champion who is ranked third in the state, and 171-pound wrestler Josh Pearson, who is ranked seventh in the state -- did not contribute any points.

Each of them lost a tight match to a state-ranked opponent -- Williams to top-ranked Marcus Orona and Pearson to No. 6 Niko Crouch.

-- Chuck Schilken

-- Image from www.wikipedia.org