El Cajon Meet Wrestles Hassles

The El Cajon Invitational wrestling tournament might be the standard by which other local tournaments are measured, but the most recent installment of the 20-year-old event was a nightmare, a monster of its own popularity creeping into the sleeping hours of most wrestlers.

It began at 3:30 p.m., one hour late, but the first day of wrestling didn’t end until 12:45 the next morning, even though one round of consolation was moved to the second day.

To save themselves for the 7:30 a.m. weigh-in, some teams spent the night at local motels.

Glen Takahashi, Valhalla wrestling coach and the meet director for the past 16 years, vowed the tournament wouldn’t have the same problems next year.

“We’ve outgrown the facility,” he said, echoing the sentiments of other coaches who were bleary-eyed on that second day.

Poway Coach Wayne Branstetter was more blunt: “This is a terrible site to have a quality tournament.”

With 44 teams participating--four showed up unexpectedly--it caused preliminary matches to be added to get down to the 32-man brackets in each of the 13 weight divisions, increasing total preliminary and first-round matches from 208 to about 225.

“What am I supposed to do,” Takahashi said, “tell (schools) they can’t compete when they’ve got it on their schedule and I might have made a clerical error?”

The preliminary matches were delayed because the pre-tournament seeding meeting went long. Other contributing factors to the late night: only five mats--there should be at least six--were on the El Cajon Valley gym floor; three of those mats were squares, not circles, which make matches longer because wrestlers stray out of bounds more easily; and because of this year’s late vacation schedule, the tournament was held on a school day for the first time, necessitating the afternoon start.

The tournament has been held on Mondays and Tuesdays in the past, but Christmas fell on Tuesday in 1990.

“We’re looking for a larger site next year,” Takahashi said. “We need at least one more mat and we would start earlier.”

The new site? “Cuyamaca College is supposedly getting a gym,” Takahashi said. “It would be a natural recruiting device to have it there, and we can do it right.”

Another possible site is Grossmont College, or maybe West Hills High, but then it would lose the flavor of being a fund raiser for Valhalla and El Cajon Valley.

“I had complaints,” Takahashi said, “but no one said they were never coming back.”

ADD LONG DAY: Mt. Carmel Coach Jose Campo got home from the tournament at 1:30 a.m. Drained emotionally and physically, he finally rolled into bed, turned out the lights and pulled up the covers.

“Did (your brother) Rick tell you what happened to your mom?” asked Campo’s wife, Stacey.

“What?” Campo responded.

“She went into the bathroom, fainted, fell, and she dislocated her shoulder,” Stacey said. “We had to take her to the hospital.”

Campo, after recounting the scenario: “So here I am, laying in bed, with my mom--on vacation from New York--in the next room with her arm in a sling. And now I’m supposed to go to sleep?”

ADD REAL LONG DAY: It was easy to understand why Rancho Bernardo Coach David Meyer was catching a nap in an assistant’s van while waiting for a consolation round to end.

As usual, Meyer awoke the morning of the tournament at 4:30 a.m. to go to school--he lives in Vista--and got home from the meet at 2:30 a.m. the following morning, Saturday. He again awoke at 4:30, went through the tournament’s second day and caught an 11:10 p.m. flight to Chicago for the holidays. During the tournament, he also saw junior Bob Chrisotomo become the first RB wrestler to ever place in a meet, taking sixth at 112 pounds.

TRIVIA TIME: Bill Walton played at Helix High School and later played in the NBA. So did Cliff Levingston, who played at Morse and currently plays with the Chicago Bulls. Who is the most recent San Diego high school product to reach the NBA?

THE PR WAY. Laura Wollner, director of media relations for the Above the Rim Hoopwear Classic at Torrey Pines, got into a discussion on the price of the tickets for the tournament, $6 daily at Torrey Pines, $10 at the Sports Arena, to watch high school basketball.

“Why are tickets so expensive,” came the question.

“The reason is because it’s a benefit (for the San Dieguito boys’ and girls’ clubs),” Wollner said.

“Does that make the tickets tax deductible?” she was asked.

“No, they’re not tax deductible,” she said. “Look, what does $6 buy these days? A movie. They can go to a yucky holiday movie or see the best tournament this side of the Mississippi.”

TOURNAMENT LETDOWN. The tournament boasted three national top 10 teams and another in the top 20 which, presumably, did make it the best tournament West of the Mississippi River.

“There will be some great games,” Torrey Pines Coach John Farrell predicted.

But only three of the 21 games had the winner and loser within 10 points of each other.

More typical of the scores was St. Anthony’s 83-65 knockout of St. Raymond’s in the title game. St. Anthony was ranked No. 3 nationally, St. Raymond No. 2.

“That’s what our goal is, a hypothetical national championship,” Farrell said. “Any one of those (final) four (including Monsignor McClancy and Miami Senior) would vie for a state title in California.”

THE RECORD STANDS. San Dieguito’s Matt de la Pena made 27 consecutive free-throws before finally missing, against Orange Glen, to finish tied for third in section history with Chula Vista’s Ritchie Greaser (1988). Marian’s Pat Mendes made 28 straight in 1987, and Travis Gilley had 31 over a six-game period last year.

De la Pena’s shooting touch then went south. He finished four of seven from the line against Orange Glen and is just nine of 16 since missing.

TRIVIA ANSWER. Jud Buechler, who played on three consecutive San Diego Section championship teams with Poway from 1984-86, is a rookie with the New Jersey Nets.

AWARD WINNER. Mira Mesa’s Joseph LoDuca was named winner of the R. Hastings Garland, Jr. Memorial Scholarship Award for his outstanding academic achievements, citizenship, participation in athletics and extracurricular activities. LoDuca was chosen from among 194 seniors to receive the $1,500 award. He participates in football, soccer and baseball for the Marauders and plans to study medicine.

The other finalists for the award were University of San Diego High School’s Douglas Abts, Madison’s Heather Bowen, Coronado’s John Bowen, Vista’s Matthew Skific and Crawford’s James Wadas.

Garland, a Holiday Bowl founder, was an active supporter of youth sports in San Diego.