DIVISION I WRESTLING DUAL MEET CHAMPIONSHIPS : Momentum Helps El Modena to Title

El Modena won the Southern Section Division I dual meet wrestling title, defeating Ventura, 36-20, Thursday night at El Modena High.

Section champions Teak Sato (130) and Juan Alvarez (135) of El Modena dominated their opponents.

Sato (43-1) had eight takedowns over Jesus Solis before gaining a technical fall eight seconds into the final period.

“Sometimes I just get into a rhythm and feel like I can take my opponent down no matter what,” Sato said. “Tonight I felt that way.”

Alvarez scored the first pin of the night by defeating Justin Boynton at 3 minutes 37 seconds.

Combined with El Modena’s Milo Ventimiglia’s 17-8 decision over David Johnson at 112-pounds, the Vanguards took an early 7-0 lead and controlled the match.

“Our win at 112 was a huge boost for us,” El Modena Coach Alan Clinton said. “We’d expected to give something up early.”

Ventura Coach Paul Clementi held out Ryan Atherton, the runner-up in last weekend’s Southern Section individual championships at 103 pounds. He suffered an upper body injury and is questionable for Saturday’s Southern Section Masters meet.

In his place, sophomore Ricardo Cardona wrestled. Cardona was 26-1 going into the meet, but all his matches were at the junior varsity level.

Cardona stayed with Bao Nguyen, leading, 5-3, after two periods before being out-pointed, 7-5.

Ventura (18-2) made a brief comeback with a strong performance by Nate Tafoya at 119. Tafoya beat Josh Wagner, 15-2, to give Ventura its first team points.

El Modena’s Colin Burns defeated Ventura’s Chris Advani, 4-0, at 125 pounds.

The Cougars, desperate for points, moved Chris Karlowsky, a Masters qualifier, up from 140 pounds to 145 to avoid former section champion David Wells.

The strategy backfired when Wells (45-5) pinned replacement Bryan Doss at 3:11, and Karlowsky was outpointed, 6-1, by Chris Jaime.

“I don’t think any one weight mattered,” Karlowsky said. “We just didn’t wrestle well tonight.”

As expected, the Cougars heaviest wrestlers performed well. Jason Sims (27-8) broke El Modena’s six-match streak at 160 pounds with an 11-3 victory over Matt King.

At 189 pounds, Ryan Burdick (33-9) recorded Ventura’s first pin, defeating Zane Koss in 52 seconds. Heavyweight Sean Burdick pinned Dan Kingman in 3:37.