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The top step of the victory stand has become a very comfortable spot for Dan Montanez of the Monta Vista wrestling team.
And Montanez was back in that comfort zone last Saturday night when he won a rare fourth straight individual championship at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League wrestling finals at Lynbrook.
Montanez was crowned the champion at 162 pounds, tying a record than can never be broken with four wrestling titles in a high school career.
Montanez's title wasn't enough, though, to get the Matadors in the running for the team title at the league tourney--that battle was left to Los Gatos and Fremont. Gatos ran away with the points title, running up 252.5 to finish well ahead of runner-up Fremont (192.5). Wilcox (150) was a distant third with Cupertino (111) fourth and Monta Vista (108.5) fifth.
Bronson Farr won a championship at 217 pounds to lead the Pioneers to a team fourth at the finals. Farr whipped John Armenta of Los Altos in the hotly contested title match.
Supporting Farr's performance for Cupertino were Aris Harutyunyan, third at 142 pounds; Renato Linares, third at 152; and Steve Plotnikov, tied for third at 132. Fifth places went to Renato Sanchez at 127 pounds, David Joyner at 147 and Paul Kim at 162, and Gonzalo Garcia was eighth at 191.
Alex Kodagura of Monta Vista made it to the finals at 121 pounds, but lost to Jordan France of Los Gatos to wind up second.
Rounding out the list of Monta Vista placers were Jack Lai, who tied with Plotnikov for third at 132; Nate Fung, who tied for third at 137;
Grant Kodagura, fourth at 114; Eric Katz, who tied Joyner for third at 147; and Travis Constant, eighth at 142.
Homestead finished the day with three placers. Carlos Ayala was fifth at 137 pounds, Matt Ott tied for fifth at 142, Trent Lee was fifth at 217 and Paul Neuswanger was eighth at 132. The Mustangs finished 11th in the 15-team tournament.
Los Gatos and Fremont each had four individual champions at the league tournament. Jordan France (121 pounds), James Alva (132), David Bitter (147) and Eric Chen (173) each won titles for the Wildcats and Boris Navochkov (105), Filip Navochkov (114), Kurtis Ogasawara (142) and Greg Crane (154) were champions for the Firebirds.
The SCVAL placers will now look ahead to the Central Coast Section tournament set for Feb. 2526 at Overfelt High School in east San Jose. The top placers there advance to the state tourney to be held March 45 in Bakersfield.
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