Hard Work Gives Westlake Its Due : Warriors Dominate Marmonte League Wrestling Tournament

If anyone believes in the good old American work ethic, it certainly has to be Coach Larry Stonebraker and his Westlake High wrestling team.

A year of lifting weights, conditioning and just plain hard work paid off Saturday night. Westlake put on the blue collar and collared the Marmonte League wrestling championship with 189.5 points at Camarillo High. The Warriors (16-2 in dual meets) already had captured the league dual-meet title.

Newbury Park, league co-champion with Channel Islands last year, finished second with 123.5 points and Simi Valley took third with 122.5 points.

“We were good last year, but we worked hard and just scored more points this year,” Stonebraker said. “The guys worked a lot in the off-season in weight training and summer wrestling camps. It became a year-round job for them.”

Eight Westlake wrestlers in 13 weight classifications advanced to the championship round and six took titles.

The Warriors’ first championship came in the 112-pound match as Farzin Daneshnia upset last year’s league champion, Chris Corpuz of Channel Islands, by pinning him with 47 seconds left.

“I really improved because of a wrestling camp I attended in Iowa last summer,” Daneshnia said. “We had a big rivalry between us. He beat me in the league finals last year, but I knew I could pull it out if I would concentrate, and I got the job done.”

Westlake registered four more pins, including one in 39 seconds by Billy Hunter (175 pounds) over Don Moore of Channel Islands. Hunter improved his record to 30-0 and is ranked third in the state.

“We worked hard and we had a lot of experience this year,” Hunter said.

Also for Westlake, Brad Miya (119 pounds) pinned Camarillo’s Jim James in 1:32, Neil Mason (145) pinned Camarillo’s Mike Schioppi in 1:38, and Dave Schumm (191) pinned Dave Miller of Thousand Oaks in 3:43.

The Warriors’ other championship went to Darrell Valance (165), who won a tough 5-2 overtime decision over Thousand Oaks’ Sean Toner.

Newbury Park’s Chris Kilbane, defending league and Southern Section 4-A Division champion, won the 154-pound class with a 15-0 superior decision over Charlie Verhoven of Simi Valley. Also for Newbury Park, Kevin Mabry won at 105 pounds and Jeff Jay took the heavyweight class.

Wrestlers finishing first or second qualified for the Southern Section 4-A meet next Friday and Saturday at Edison High. Third-place finishers are alternates.