El Camino Real Gains Respect in Upset of Ventura

The El Camino Real High wrestling program struck a blow for itself and perhaps the rest of the City Section on Thursday.

Winning the first five weight classes and surviving through the middle weights, the Conquistadores upset powerful Ventura, 40-23, in a nonleague dual meet at El Camino Real.

“Respectability, that’s been our battle cry for the last 12 months,” said Coach Terry Fischer of El Camino Real, who has endured ridicule from other coaches at his school.

“I said to the kids to do whatever you can do to earn respect. I’ve never had a group of kids work this hard for 12 months.”

El Camino Real entered the dual meet without unbeaten 140-pounder Moshe Levi and heavyweight Shaheen Jahangard.

Levi has not been with the team for three weeks, taking time off for personal reasons. Jahangard has been out with a shoulder injury.

Despite the void left by Jahangard, El Camino Real got clutch performances from Chris Sloan and Manny Gonzalez.

Sloan, who weighs 201 pounds, won a decision at 215 and Gonzalez moved from 215 to heavyweight and pinned Matt Benitez in 3:04.

El Camino Real, ranked No. 3 in the region by The Times, proved it was ready from the start against top-ranked Ventura.

Josh Berg provided early momentum for El Camino Real at 103 pounds by pinning Robert Bermudez in 1:35.

Cory Lee (112 pounds), Matt Roman (119 pounds) and Edward Lemus (125) followed with victories and Ryan Umali (130) finished the outburst by pinning Andy Webber in 51 seconds.

Trailing, 22-0, Ventura (12-5) bounced back behind victories from Nick Taminich (135 pounds), Joaquim Real (140), David Lopez (145) and Tim Eckberg (152) to pull to within 22-17 with five matches left.

But in a pivotal bout, Alex Keyan of El Camino Real beat Justin Rivera, 8-6, in overtime. Keyan fell behind, but tied the match, 6-6, when Rivera was penalized for stalling.

Keyan scored on a takedown to give the Conquistadores a 25-17 lead.

However, Bobby Taylor (171) kept Ventura alive by sticking Andreik De Leon to the mat in 1:36 to cut the Conquistadors’ lead to 25-23.

That’s as close as Ventura got.

El Camino Real closed by winning the final three weight classes.

Jamar Cargo pinned Mike Kaleiohi in 3:05 to win the 189-pound bout and Sloan won a 7-3 decision over Oscar Perez at 215, building the Conquistadores’ lead to an insurmountable 34-23.

“I was trying not to think about [clinching the victory],” Sloan said. “I was trying to focus on the match. I just wanted to score points because he was pretty tough and bigger than me.”