Poway Is Favored With 9 Qualifiers : Orange County Athletes Looking for Championships

Starting at 11 o’clock today, 325 wrestlers will be competing for individual honors at the CIF State Wrestling Meet at Independence High School.

By late Saturday, only 13 wrestlers will be able to call themselves state champion at the conclusion of the two-day meet that brings together the state’s best wrestlers.

Eight wrestling mats will be used to handle all of the preliminary rounds today and four will be used for Saturday’s semifinals and finals. The Independence gymnasium seats 6,500 and meet director and Independence wrestling Coach Gene Montori expects a sellout for the finals.

“We’ve held the meet here before in 1984 and 1979 without any problems,” Montori said. “Wrestling is a popular sport at our school, so we’ll be bringing along a big crowd along with all of the visitors from across the state.”

The host school has three wrestlers in the meet, including 105-pound sophomore Marco Sanchez, who enters the meet with a 41-0 record and is the favorite to win his weight class.

Others expected to challenge for their weight-class titles are Santa Monica’s Lawrence Jackson at 136 pounds, Marina’s Ed Ruiz at 130 pounds, El Dorado’s Steve Lawson at 195 pounds, and Montclair’s David Jones at heavyweight.

Unlike the Masters meet held in each section last week to determine today’s individual qualifiers, team scoring also will be kept.

The top three teams are San Diego Poway, Pacifica Oceana, and Clovis, Montori said.

“After that, it should be a dogfight for the next four or five places. Poway looks like the best bet for the title because they’ve got nine wrestlers that made it here.”

Rick Martens, Loara’s 27-year-old coach who guided the Saxons to the Southern Section 4-A title in only his second season, said that at the state meet a wrestler’s mental attitude is as important as his physical training.

Said Martens: “Being in awe of all of the great wrestlers at the meet tends to work against the first-time kids. A lot of kids set their sights on just making it to state and then let down once they get here.

“It’s the wrestler who has been through all of this before who is most likely to have the better performance on the mat.”

Martens added that by now, making weight was little problem for most of the wrestlers involved; having worked all season to get to the state tournament, they are not likely to go on eating sprees until after the meet is over.

Loara was one of six Southern Section schools to have three wrestlers advance to the state tournament, but none are expected to challenge Poway for the team title.