STATE WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS : Valdez Is Headed Into Semifinals

Shane Valdez of Calvary Chapel plopped an ice bag on top of his noggin and a trainer ran to get some aspirin.

Someone else asked if his stomach hurt. Was he dizzy? How many fingers were showing?

Was this any way to advance to today’s CIF State wrestling semifinals?

“I feel good, this feels great,” Valdez said after surviving three head-butts and sudden-death overtime to defeat Issac Pumarejo of Kingsburg, 3-1, in the 112-pound quarterfinals Friday.

“I’ve never been head-butted like that before,” Valdez said. “There were three times when I had to stop (the match). There were probably more head-butts, though.”

Bumped and bruised, Valdez will meet Eric Guerrero of San Jose Independence at 10 a.m. today at the University of the Pacific’s Spanos Center.

He will be joined by three other Orange County wrestlers in the semifinals. David Quintero of Valencia meets Yogi Leake of Brentwood Liberty at 125, Shane Holloway of Saddleback faces Joel Robinson of Modesto Downey at 135 and Mike Bolster of Huntington Beach goes against La Roi Glover of Point Loma in the heavyweight division.

One glaring absentee in today’s semifinals will be Matt Padgett of Canyon at 160. Blame it on an upset at the North Coast Section championships last week.

When Keith Richards of Mission San Jose, the State’s top-ranked 160-pounder, lost to Casey Strand of College Park last Saturday, it threw the State meet draw sheet out of whack. And it forced Padgett and Richards, a three-time state champion from Oklahoma, into an earlier-than-expected second-round matchup.

Richards came away a 13-6 winner, pushing Padgett, who had been unbeaten in 48 matches this season, into the consolation bracket.

Padgett, the Five Counties, 4-A and Masters Meet champion, is still alive for third place, but it’s going to take a little work wrestling back through consolation rounds today.

The county’s four semifinalists are assured a spot in the top seven.

Knowing a top-seven spot was secure was enough to whet Holloway’s appetite for more.

“I just want to place higher now,” he said.

Saddleback Coach Paul LaBlanc likes Holloway’s chances.

“He’s very aggressive,” LaBlanc said. “He’s not making many mistakes and that’s what it takes to win here.”

Quintero and Bolster had easy paths into the semifinals.

Quintero’s closest match was a 5-3 victory over Curtis Summers of Clovis in the quarterfinals.

Bolster, who was knocked out of the Southern Section 4-A final in the first round last season, had two pins in his three matches Friday.

He stopped Steve Contreras of Santa Clara 5 minutes 30 seconds into their quarterfinal match. He also pinned Sean Spradley of Visalia Mt. Whitney 3:15 into his first-round match.

Meet Notes

Apparently, Bill Grant, editor of The California Wrestler newsletter and Monterey coach, didn’t think much of Orange County wrestlers’ chances at Stockton. In his annual top picks published in Friday’s Stockton Record, he selected only one county wrestler--sophomore Shane Valdez of Calvary Chapel at 112 pounds--to win a State title. Grant picked Matt Padgett of Canyon for third at 160. Padgett, a senior who was sixth last season, came into the meet with a 47-0 record with 40 pins.

Loc Pham of Irvine (103 pounds), Dane Valdez of Calvary Chapel (119), Brad Belanger of Savanna and Brad Speers of Magnolia (135) reached the quarterfinals before losing.