Campbell Helps Poway Capture Wrestling Title

All that was missing from the introductions of the finalists at the Five Counties Wrestling Tournament Saturday night were fireworks and laser beams.

Inside the darkened Fountain Valley High School gymnasium, a bright spotlight shone on the wrestlers as they paraded through a smoke-filled doorway to be greeted by a cheering packed house.

When the smoke cleared and wrestling was finished, Poway High School won the team title in the tournament many California coaches recognize as the toughest invitational besides the CIF Championships.

Byron Campbell earned Most Valuable Wrestler honors for the upper weights, leading Poway to only its second team title in 18 years of the tournament.

“The best of the best are here,” Poway coach Wayne Branstetter said. “You don’t really know how good you are until you come here.

“We finished 11th here last year, but we managed to turn it into a positive by qualifying 12 guys for state last season. But we did not want a repeat performance of last year.’

Junior heavyweight Corey Farkas helped assure that by keeping his record unblemished by improving to 26-0 on the year with a 1-0 decision over Scott Salmon of Tulsa Oklahoma’s Union High School to take the Five Counties Heavyweight title.

“Taking first here means a lot,” Farkas said. “We should have a pretty good shot at the state title.”

Poway finished with a team total of 146 points. Clovis was second at 138 1/2, and Madera in third with 135 points. Valhalla finished in fifth with 125 1/2 points.

Campbell was the most impressive wrestler in the tournament as he came in as the top seed in the 146-pound class, and proceeded to pin all of his opponents, including David Sandstrom of Paradise High School in the finals at the 2:25 mark.

“I’m still in shock that we won the team title,” Campbell said, “I think I wrestled my best at this tournment and I was really confident throughout the tourney.”

Valhalla managed one champion at the meet, with Jason Hendrick taking the 161-pound class with a 9-7 decision over Matt Padgett of Canyon Anaheim.

Angelo Espineli of Monte Vista made it to the finals of the 104 pound class, but Overfelt’s Edgar Batista topped him with a 13-3 decision.

Although Branstetter admitted it was a good performance for his team at a tough tournament, he felt it didn’t make Poway a lock for the CIF title.

“When we qualified 12 guys for CIF last year, everyone kept asking me when we didn’t win and finished third, ‘What happened?’ ” Branstetter said.