SOUTHERN SECTION PLAYOFFS : DIVISION I WRESTLING : Three Solid Victories Send El Modena to Final

El Modena’s top-seeded wrestling team advanced to the Southern Section Division I dual meet final with three impressive victories in the opening rounds Wednesday.

That news shouldn’t come as any great surprise, except perhaps to Vanguard Coach Alan Clinton, who paced and fretted nervously throughout a long afternoon and evening at El Modena.

“I don’t want to do that every day,” Clinton said. “This was a tough day’s work, a tough day of wrestling. There were some tough teams here.”

Perhaps. But in the end, El Modena was clearly the best. Its 33-19 victory over Ventura in the semifinal vaulted the Vanguards to next week’s final against third-seeded Indio.

El Modena (17-0) won its opening-round match, 48-24, over Westminster, then routed Mission Viejo, 54-16, in the quarterfinals.

Seven of the Vanguards’ 10 victories over the Diablos came via pins. They also had one technical fall.

Fourth-seeded Ventura (16-3) beat Western, 41-16, in the first round and El Monte, 41-18, in the quarterfinals.

Ventura began the semifinal with what amounted to a six-point lead. As it has all season, El Modena wrestled without a heavyweight--although Clinton could have juggled the lineup to include one if things got tight.

As it turned out, the match hinged on a 13-7 victory by El Modena’s Mike Theil over Ryan Burdick at 173 pounds. His victory gave El Modena a match-clinching 27-13 lead. Had Theil lost, Clinton was ready to move Brad Carlson into the 191-pound slot and Chris Niez, who weighed-in at 190 1/2--just 2 1/2 pounds over the minimum allowed to wrestle at heavyweight--to tackle 230-pound Sean Burdick.

Following its season-long method of operation, El Modena dominated the middle rounds with Daniel Amaya (127 pounds), Juan Alvarez (132), Todd Cameron (137) and David Wells (142) winning their matches against Mission Viejo and Ventura.

Facing Ventura’s Jason Carmody, Alvarez needed a reversal with six seconds left in the match to earn an 8-6 victory.