Southern Section Masters Wrestling : Regan Surprises With Victory

Ed Regan of Sunny Hills High School led a field of 17 Orange County wrestlers among the 65 who qualified for the state tournament by finishing in the top five in their weight classes at the CIF Southern Section Masters meet Saturday.

Regan’s come-from-behind overtime win at 116 pounds was the biggest surprise in the finals. He overcame a 2-1 deficit with 15 seconds remaining to pull out a 6-2 win over Greg Jackson of Santa Monica.

Regan managed a takedown (two points) and a near fall (three points) to surprise Jackson.

Regan, the 2-A division champion, was no slouch against Jackson, the 3-A champion and a member of Santa Monica’s renowned wrestling family.

“I wrestled him once before when we were in about fourth grade,” Regan said. “I was bigger than him then, but not now. I’ve got to wrestle a little better than that if I want to win next week.”

Regan is nonetheless happy just to have qualified for the state meet, considering he placed fifth in the state as a sophomore but missed last season’s Masters and state meet with mononucleosis.

Two other Orange County wrestlers to become champions were Ed Ruiz of Marina, who won the 130-pound weight class and unbeaten Steve Lawson of El Dorado, who took the 195-pound title.

Lawson, now 43-0, proved that he was only human, winning a match on points instead of a fall. Before his 5-0 victory over Ramon Diaz of Bishop Amat in the final, all of Lawson’s victories this season had been by a fall or technical fall (winning by at least 15 points).

Despite wrestling with a heavily taped hand, Lawson managed a fall and two technical falls before his close match in the finals.

And what’s wrong with Lawson’s hand?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m afraid to have it X-rayed before the state meet. I’ll find out after.”

Victor Valley was the only school to have two individual champions as Charlie Irick and Tom Henderson won their respective matches in the finals.

Irick pinned Dean Isa of Keppel in the 102-pound division and Henderson defeated Dennis Furnish of San Clemente, 12-5, at 158 pounds.

The greatest margin of victory in the finals came at heavyweight where David Jones of Montclair beat Randy Gonzales of Rancho Alamitos, 16-4.

Other county wrestlers who made it to the finals included second-place finishers Kyle Iwanaga of El Dorado at 109 pounds and David Hynan of Capistrano Valley at 149 pounds.

Third-place finishers included Blake Arakaki of Loara at 109-pounds, Todd Tomaczic of El Dorado at 169 pounds, Chris Wright of Loara at 179 pounds, and Chuck Weatherspoon of Labra at heavyweight.

Weatherspoon is a running back on the Highlander football team who has committed to play football at the University of Colorado.

But first for Weatherspoon and his fellow wrestlers comes the state meet, to be held Friday and Saturday at Independence High School in San Jose.