ORANGE COUNTY HOLIDAY WRESTLING TOURNAMENT : McWalters Beats Expectations With a Pin

At best, El Dorado’s Alan McWalters was hoping for a few measly points.

A pin? Get outta town.

But there McWalters was Wednesday night in the finals of the Orange County Holiday Wrestling Tournament at University High, winning by a fall at 3 minutes 30 seconds to take the 125-pound weight class title.

McWalters was one of nine county wrestlers to win divisional matches in the tournament’s inaugural year.

And that would make Aztec (N.M.) High School the inaugural team champion. The Tigers, with a 20-point lead over the second-place team after the afternoon semifinals, had wrapped up the title before the evening finals. Aztec (184.5 points) was followed by Honolulu Iolani (162), El Dorado (159.5) and San Clemente (157). Buena Park (147.5) was sixth, Savanna (125.5) took seventh and Magnolia (111.5) was ninth.

Individually, McWalters was one of four wrestlers to win by a pin. At 103, Magnolia’s Dan Jurado won at 2:49, Canyon’s Darryl Christian pinned Buena Park’s Shawn Pena at 1:21 in the 140 division and San Clemente’s Aaron Greco won at 1:08 in the 145 class.

Christian was the tournament most valuable player at the lower weights, Buena Park’s Walie Sibrie was named MVP of the upper weights.

But it was McWalters, in his first varsity season, who was wide-eyed and almost unbelieving of his achievement.

“Just to place here would have been enough,” he said. “To get first was more than I could have asked for.”

So he asked for a respectable finish and a few points for good measure. McWalters had met his opponent, Montebello Schurr’s Shane Kim twice this season and lost by a pin in their first meeting and by a technical fall in their second.

“I was going to try anything to get some points from him, anything to not lose as quickly,” McWalters said.

Anything didn’t work early on. Kim jumped to a 6-1 lead, but McWalters closed it to 7-5 midway through the second period on an escape.

“Then I squeezed as hard I could,” he said. “ . . . And I got him.”

Team-wise, El Dorado didn’t think it would get much. Going into the two-day tournament, Coach Jeff Hickok gathered the ninth-ranked Golden Hawks to discuss their goals.

“I told them they gave out trophies to the top eight teams,” Hickok said. “We threw out sixth as a goal. We thought that was realistic. We overachieved a little here.”

As the Golden Hawks have all season. They are 8-0 in dual meets and had seven wrestlers place in the top eight in this meet. They don’t understand their low ranking, considering they’ve beaten several teams ranked ahead of them.

“I don’t want to make a big deal about it,” Hickok said. “We don’t want to be overrated. But my kids have worked hard, and we want some respect.”

San Clemente had several wrestlers sick with the flu and only sent nine competitors, seven of whom placed in the top eight. The Tritons had three wrestlers, Greco, John Witting at 152 and Dylan Newman at 160, in the finals, where Greco and Witting won.

“We expected to be contending for the title,” said San Clemente Coach Mark Calentino. “But we did well considering we left so many at home.”