Kinney Welcomes Chance to Improve State Showing

Last March, Pat Kinney of El Dorado High School lost in the first round of the state wrestling championships. Now a freshman at Rancho Santiago College, Kinney wants to atone for that defeat by doing better at the next level.

Kinney, who wrestles at 126 pounds, will begin his search for redemption on Friday at the Southern California Regionals at Rancho Santiago. The top three wrestlers in each weight division will qualify for the state tournament, Dec. 8-9 in Fresno.

“I’m definitely going to go after it this year,” Kinney said. “I’ve been there and I know what it’s like. You have to be aggressive from the start. It’s not like any other tournament.”

Gary de Beaubien, Rancho Santiago’s coach, said Kinney has a good chance at qualifying and earning All-American honors by finishing among the top four at the state championships.

“If he works on being in control, I see no reason that he can’t be in the top four in the state,” de Beaubien said. “There is no one in the state that he can’t take down from his feet.”

Kinney is so good on his feet that it has become a bit of a problem. Once he has his opponent down he tends to let him go instead of maintaining control. In high school, that technique worked well enough for Kinney to finish second in the Southern Section 4-A Division and help El Dorado to the 4-A team championship.

But at the community college level, de Beaubien said, Kinney has let some opponents get back into matches by letting them escape instead of holding on and riding them.

“He needs to learn how to ride,” de Beaubien said. “He’s been so good on his feet that he hasn’t had the need to do that. It catches up with him because he’s letting them go while they are still fresh.”

Even so, Kinney is ranked third in the state with a 29-5 record and hasn’t been beaten in nine dual meets. His main competition in the regionals will be Kit Montero of Cerritos and Palomar’s Brian Wallner.

Of the two, only Montero has beaten Kinney. Montero won, 9-4, in the semifinals of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo tournament this month. But Kinney won their return match, 5-2, in the South Coast Conference dual meet in October.

Kinney has beaten Wallner, who wrestled for Poway High last year, twice this season. Kinney also went overtime to defeat Wallner last year at a high school tournament. But in the tournament that counted, the state championships, Kinney lost in the first round and Wallner was the runner-up.

Kinney is working hard to ensure that won’t happen again.

After practice, Kinney often travels to El Dorado for extra bouts with his brother, Sean, a senior on the Hawks’ team. Kinney said he gives a few pointers to his brother, who wrestles at 138 pounds and is a bit taller than the 5-foot-7 Kinney. He said the extra work helps him in his weekly effort to lose pounds to get down to his wrestling weight.

It’s this sort of effort that has impressed his college coach.

“He’s got this real determination and a great competitive attitude,” de Beaubien said. “I think that will separate him in the end.”