COMMUNITY COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Wrestler Slims Down to Move Up at State

Never mind how quick Rancho Santiago’s Brian Tomazic is, it didn’t matter when it came to wrestling the elite of the state’s heavyweight class last season.

Tomazic weighed about 220 pounds and often gave up 30 to 50 pounds to his opponents.

Still, Tomazic, an El Dorado High School graduate, managed some success and finished fourth at the State finals. He lost his semifinal match to 275-pound Eddy Neal of Fresno, the eventual State champion.

Tomazic’s goal this season is to win a State title, but he knew it was almost impossible against much larger competition. After all, wrestling is divided into weight classes so that opponents weigh about the same.

But Tomazic didn’t much care for the idea of packing another 30 or so pounds onto his 6-foot-1 frame, so he went the other way. He lost 30 pounds and is competing at the 190-pound class this season.

“I couldn’t do anything against the (275-pound) guys,” Tomazic said. “It was frustrating because I couldn’t move them. This season, I just wanted a chance to win it.”

Tomazic, 21, has a 16-4 record this season and earned a spot in the North/South wrestling tournament Saturday in Fresno. But Tomazic, who was weakened by a lingering cold and ear infection, lost his match, 10-2.

“We think he has a really good chance at a State title,” said Rancho Santiago Coach Gary deBeaubien. “His leadership and maturity are important to the team as well.”

Tomazic, who started wrestling when he was in the second grade, was a standout at El Dorado High, from which he graduated in 1989. He went to Cal State Bakersfield on a partial scholarship but said he was tired of wrestling by the time he got there and left before the season was over.

He spent the next year going to Cal State Fullerton and figured he was done with wrestling.

But Frank Gonzales, his high school coach, became an assistant at Rancho Santiago and talked Tomazic into giving it another try.

“I figured that I had two more years to wrestle in the rest of my life,” Tomazic said. “Maybe I would regret it if I didn’t to it. I know guys like that.”

Big Game Week: Unbeaten Saddleback travels to Orange Coast for the biggest game to date in the Mission Conference Central Division. The Gauchos come into the 7 p.m. Saturday game with a 7-0 mark and are the No. 1 team in the Southland Poll.

Orange Coast is 5-2 and ranked 10th in the same poll.

Both teams are 2-0 in the Central Division, and this game is vital in determining which team gets a berth in the Dec. 5 Simple Green Orange County Bowl at OCC.

In the rest of the poll, Mt. San Antonio (7-1) is second, El Camino (6-1) third, San Bernardino Valley (7-0-1) fourth, Pasadena (7-1) fifth, Palomar (6-1) sixth, Moorpark (6-0-1) seventh, Glendale (6-1) eighth, Bakersfield (5-1-1) ninth and Orange Coast (5-2) 10th.

Irvine Valley took over the top spot in the Southern California cross-county poll by winning the Moorpark Invitational Saturday.

Mt. San Antonio, which was No. 1 in the poll last week, fell to No. 2. El Camino is third, Antelope Valley fourth, San Diego Mesa fifth, Rio Hondo sixth, Glendale seventh, Ventura eighth, Rancho Santiago ninth and Cuesta 10th.

Riverside continues to top the men’s poll. El Camino is second, Mt. San Antonio third, Long Beach fourth, Ventura fifth, College of the Desert sixth, San Bernardino Valley seventh, Glendale eighth, Rio Hondo ninth, and San Diego Mesa 10th.

Academic Excellence: The 1991 Orange Coast water polo team and the 1991 Irvine Valley women’s cross-county team won scholar awards given by the state’s community college office for the teams with the top grade-point averages.

OCC’s team, coached by Don Watson, had a 3.31 grade-point average and Irvine Valley, coached by Bill and Julie Leach, had a 3.75, the highest of all winners.

Los Angeles Harbor (3.05) won for men’s soccer, Mt. San Antonio (3.12) won for women’s soccer and American River (3.24) won for women’s volleyball.

Community College Notes

Orange Coast linebacker Dwight Chornomud is having an outstanding season and has a team-high 101 tackles through seven games. But Chornomud, a sophomore from Tustin High School, is still well short of the OCC single-season record of 179 set by Rhett Tucker in 1976. Tucker is the son of former OCC football Coach Dick Tucker, who is now the Pirates’ golf coach.