Anthony Baza and Jamie Kashitani won individual championships for Fremont at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League wrestling tournament. But even with a couple of titles, the Firebirds couldn't get past Los Gatos, Monta Vista and Los Altos in the team standings at the league meet.
At the Central Coast Section tournament last weekend, though, it was an entirely different story.
Baza and Kashitani didn't win titles, but they did place second and third, respectively, to lead the Firebirds to an impressive team 11th at the rugged tournament.
Watsonville ran up 178 points to win the team title with Bellarmine second at 125.5 and Westmont an impressive third at 119. Fremont finished a mere point and a half out of the top 10 in 11th at 78.5. Gilroy and North Monterey County each finished with 79 points to tie for ninth.
Los Gatos, behind fourth-placers Dan Benedetti and Mike Narducci, finished 13th overall with 65 points. Individual champion Jarrod Rothman sparked Monta Vista to a team 16th (53.5) with Los Altos 18th (51).
It was Los Gatos, Los Altos and Monta Vista who had finished one-two-three at the league meet a week earlier. Fremont was a distant fourth at the tournament, with league dual- match champion Cupertino fifth. The Wildcats rolled to the team title at the league tournament and qualified 12 wrestlers for CCS in the process.
The Cats ran up 178 points to finish first in the tourney, with Los Altos second at 153.5 and Monta Vista third at 151.
Los Gatos didn't have an individual champion at the league finals, but the Cats did have four wrestlers reach the championship round.
James Pease (132), Kenny Troquato-Perrotti (137), Benedetti (142) and Narducci (191) each finished second in the league meet for the Cats.
Claiming thirds for Gatos were David Potts (105), Dae-Jin Joseph (115), David Serwitz (147), Matthew Troquato-Perrotti (154), Ian Carpenter (217) and Aaron Wagman (277). Daniel Stassart (127) and Jerry Yuhara (162) also qualified for CCS with strong performances at the finals.
Benedetti and Narducci backed up their league showing with place-winning efforts at CCS last weekend. The two will join CCS champ Rothman as part of an 11-member contingent from the SCVAL headed to the state meet March 5-6 at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.
Benedetti got off to a strong start at the CCS tournament, winning all three of his matches on the first day of the event to reach the semifinals.
The Gatos standout edged Leonard Vigil of Silver Creek 7-6, then pinned Albert Trujillo of King City a minute into his next match. An 11-2 win over Alexis Lara of Gilroy left Benedetti 3-0 on the first day of competition.
But Benedetti was pinned by eventual champion Brian Cobb of Bellarmine at match later and pushed into the consolation bracket.
He beat Vigil again, this time 6-1, but then lost to Fremont's Jamie Kashitani 6-3 in the third-place match. Kashitani had beaten Benedetti a week earlier in the league championship match.
Narducci took a somewhat different path to his fourth-place finish.
The big Cat had a first-round bye, but then lost 8-5 to Ray Ramirez of St. Francis. But Narducci came charging back with five straight wins to get into the third-place match.
Narducci beat up Nick Monroy of Leland 12-4, then pinned Ray Shelley of Monta Vista with 20 seconds left in the second round. He pinned Chris Mazurkiewi of Los Altos 22 seconds into the second round, then dropped Spiro Tannous of Terra Nova in a quick 35 seconds.
Narducci pulled out a tight 6-4 win over Travis Richards of Soquel to get into the battle for third place, but then lost a 3-2 heartbreaker to Grant Murdock of Pioneer to wind up fourth.
Joseph, Pease and Carpenter each opened the CCS tourney with victories.
Joseph pinned Anthony Castro of North Salinas in 1:20 of the first round to open the tourney, but lost a 4-2 heartbreaker to Khai Banh of Piedmont Hills a match later. Joseph beat Josh Cousins of San Benito by technical fall, but fell out of the field with a 9-4 loss to Evan Cooper of Live Oak.
Pease pulled out a tight 10-9 win over Bernie Gonzales of Overfelt in his 132-pound opener, but then he dropped a tough 12-9 nod to David Blaylock of Lincoln. Pease dropped to the consolation side and won by technical fall over Tan Nguyen of Leland, but then lost 7-2 to Duy Tran of Independence.
Carpenter downed Nolan Millare of Seaside 9-3 before getting pinned by Anthony Davis of Los Altos. Carpenter lost by injury default a match later.
K. Troquato-Perrotti, Serwitz and Wagman each opened the tournament with losses, but fought back with victories in the consolation bracket.
Troquato-Perrotti was pinned in his opener at 137 pounds, but came back to beat Josh Pebet of Burlingame 11-9, Alex Leon of Alisal on a third-round fall and Abu Ramin of Bellarmine 7-3 before losing 7-2 to Izayas Castillo of Silver Creek.
Serwitz lost on a technical fall in his first match at 147 pounds before coming back with wins over Rajan Birla of St. Francis (6-2), Nick Alaimo of Half Moon Bay (2-1) and Wesley Pierce of Aragon (5-2). Serwitz lost 9-0 to Steve Monteiro of Watsonville, though, to face elimination.
Wagman was pinned in his opener at 277, but rebounded with a 10-8 win over an opponent from North Monterey County and won by injury default over Tysen Sanders of Half Moon Bay. Wagman was knocked out of the tourney by Isaac Miramontes.
Stassart dropped two close decisions at 127 pounds, falling 14-12 to Michael Berger of St. Francis and 4-2 to Julian Ramirez of Seaside; M. Troquato-Perrotti lost two in a row, losing 6-4 to Adrian Carbajal of Mt. Pleasant and 9-7 to Jon Stewart of Terra Nova; Yuhara lost two straight at 162, falling to Nick Cort of Aragon and Spencer Hearns of Santa Teresa; and Potts lost two, to Robin Tabana of Santa Teresa by fall and to Thien Ho of Monterey 8-3.
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