STATE HIGH SCHOOL WRESTLING : Poway Has All the Right Numbers, Wins Title

The Poway High School wrestling team overwhelmed the rest of the state’s entries with sheer numbers at the State Wrestling Championships Saturday.

The Titans ran away with the team title at Independence High School here, outscoring El Dorado of Placentia, an Anaheim suburb, 105-80.5. Vacaville was a distant third place with 55 points.

With 10 wrestlers making the state meet, the Titans were all but guaranteed to finish in the top three because those wrestlers figured to score enough points even if none of them made it to the finals. As it turned out, two Titans advanced to the finals but each lost.

By comparison, El Dorado had only three wrestlers at the meet, but all three made it to the finals. It still wasn’t enough to overtake Poway.

In fact, the Titans were announced as team champions even before the final round began, such was their overall dominance.

“Deep inside we knew we had it won Friday (after the first day’s scoring),” Titan Coach Wayne Branstetter said. “It’s a great feeling to win it. We’re just a bunch of overachievers.

“The nice thing about it is that we’re a home-grown team. Everybody started on the team as a freshman, worked hard, and now it’s paying off. We didn’t have to import some All-Americans from someplace to win this.”

Said 194-pounder Harold Jones, one of the two Titan finalists: “Coach (Branstetter) told us how if everybody contributed, we’d get the team title, and that’s how it went.”

Jones lost his final match against El Dorado’s Steve Lawson, who pinned Jones 52 seconds into the third period. Considering that Lawson went undefeated this season and is considered to be one of the best high school wrestlers in the country, Jones won’t be feeling too bad today.

The other Titan finalist was Jesse John, who was defeated by Brandon Dennington of Tracy. Dennington, a defending state champion, prevailed in their 157-pound match, 14-4.

Although Poway was the big story Saturday, several other county wrestlers did themselves proud.

Mark Gerardi of Valhalla successfully defended his state championship by wrestling Jason Veduzco of Antioch to a technical fall. Gerardi led the entire way, and the match was stopped after he had built a 15-point lead (16-1). Gerardi finished the season 41-0.

John Grubb of El Camino emerged the winner of the 102-pound weight class by downing Charlie Irick of Victorville, 7-0. Grubb grabbed a 2-0 lead early, built that to 7-0 by the end of the second period and then coasted from there.

At 130 pounds, Frank Torres of San Marcos, winner of the San Diego Section meet at that weight last week, took a fifth place by defeating Marco DeMederios of Cerritos, 8-1, in the fifth-place final.