Championship Saturday / The City and Southern Section crowned 41 team champions this weekend in basketball and soccer. Here’s a look at some of the top story lines from Saturday’s play:
Another day at the state wrestling championships in Bakersfield, another rough go for Southern Section wrestling teams.
The highest finish among section teams belonged to Santa Ana Calvary Chapel, which finished 10th. It was only the second time since 1983 that a Southern Section team failed to crack the top six, but both have come in the last three years.
Temecula Valley Co-Coach Arnold Alpert said it might be a trend that continues unless the Southern Section tapers its grueling playoff system that includes league, divisional and dual-meet championships, followed by the Masters meet and the state tournament.
No other section has as many playoff rounds.
“The fatigue we’re putting our kids through is detrimental to our overall production up here,” Alpert said. “We’re stuffing 24 matches into a month, when you wrestle 40 in a whole year. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
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Jason Lara of Calvary Chapel defeated top-ranked Nikko Triggas of Moraga Campolindo, 11-5, to win the 119-pound weight class, avenging a one-point loss to Triggas at the Reno Tournament of Champions in December.
It also helped him overcome a loss last week in the Masters meet.
“I was really upset about losing, but it ended up being God’s plan,” he said. “It seems like I was so angry and it just ended up being a better bracket to get to the finals.”
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Garrett Drucker of Huntington Beach Edison won the 135-pound title with a 9-7 victory over Elliott Dennis of Carlsbad La Costa Canyon, erasing the memory of a third-place finish at the Masters meet last week.
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When Yusef Syed of Santa Monica took the mat in the 152-pound final against Vinny Maraj of Yucca Valley, he had already locked up the distinction of being the first wrestler from the school to place in the top eight since 1991.
When Syed defeated Maraj, 10-8, he became the first Viking to win a title since Lawrence Jackson won three in a row from 1984 to ’86.
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