PREP WRESTLING / FIVE COUNTIES INVITATIONAL : Calvary Chapel Dominates Final Matches

It’s getting to the point where people will stop scoring Calvary Chapel wrestlers and start timing them instead.

Victory isn’t so much the question as is how fast the Eagles will clinch it, as evidenced by their overwhelming performance Saturday night in the championship of the Five Counties Invitational at Fountain Valley.

Calvary Chapel placed six wrestlers in the finals--four more than any other team--and five won individual championships en route to the Eagles’ team title, where they outscored their closest competition by legions.

Defending State champion Calvary Chapel, which finished third here in 1993, scored 214 1/2 points to runner-up Canyon Springs’ 125 1/2, the largest margin of victory since Shawnee, Okla., defeated Capistrano Valley by 101 points in 1988, and the second most points--Clovis West scored 223 1/2 in 1983--in the tournament’s 28-year history.

But the Eagles saw this competition as a testing ground, not their playground.

“This lets us know what kind of competition there will be at the State meet,” Calvary Chapel Coach John Azevedo said.

Josh Holiday, who pulled out a last-second victory for the 145-pound title, agreed: “This shows us how we’re doing in California.”

With victories over the state’s top-two ranked wrestlers, Holiday’s doing fine. He made it five for five for Calvary Chapel when he scored on an escape with three seconds remaining to take an 8-7 decision in his match against Clovis’ Kyle Swan, No. 1 in the State.

“I tried to go for (the escape) earlier,” he said. “I looked over at my coaches and I knew I had to get out.”

The only Eagle who didn’t win a title was Ed Mosley at 152, who lost, 7-5, in overtime to Jim Kutz of Roseburg, Ore. Mosley’s only other loss of the season came at the hands of the same wrestler--Oregon’s defending state champion--at the Sierra Nevada tournament, where Kutz won, 6-4, in overtime.

“We would have liked to see Mosley win, but overall, it was awesome, and we came out of it with no injuries,” Azevedo said.

Other winners for Calvary Chapel were Joe Calavitta (103), who fell behind early before he won, 6-5; easy winners Shane Valdez (119) and Dane Valdez (125) and Mauricio Mora (135), a 9-5 winner over Vince Virgen of Buena Park.

At 140, David Wells of El Modena lost, 4-3, to Madera’s Moises Perez on a late takedown by Perez, and heavyweight Wally Sibrie of Buena Park and Greg Ford of Whittier went scoreless into the third period before Ford scored for the 2-0 decision.

In the Nogales Super Champion wrestling tournament:

Laguna Hills wrestlers finish in top three--Laguna Hills’ Jeff Greco, Kevin Ely and David Yarbrough placed among the top three in their respective divisions. The fourth-ranked Hawks placed third in team competition and Sunny Hills fourth in the 37-team tournament.