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Four wrestlers qualify for state meet
By Dick Sparrer
It's on to the spring sports season for most athletes at Los Gatos High School this week.
But not for four members of the Gatos wrestlers. As far as they're concerned, it's still winter.
It's nothing like the old groundhog theory, though. These four wrestlers didn't see their shadows, they prolonged winter by placing high enough at the Central Coast Section tournament to qualify for the state wrestling meet.
Andrew Pease, David Serwitz, Brian Miguel and Richard Escobar each placed in the top four at the CCS finals last weekend at Independence High School in east San Jose to earn trips to the state meet March 2-3 at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.
Pease and Serwitz each placed third and Miguel and Escobar nailed fourths to earn state berths and also lead the Wildcats to a solid fourth-place finish in the team standings at CCS.
Bellarmine ran up 166 points to win the team title at the section finals. Silver Creek was second at 151 with St. Francis third at 135 and Los Gatos fourth at 130. San Benito was a distant fifth at 122.
Gatos was the top Santa Clara Valley Athletic League finisher--Fremont was the closest, seventh with 105.50 points. But that should come as little surprise since the Cats were unbeaten in the De Anza Division dual match season (6-0) and finished first at the SCVAL finals.
Pease and Serwitz starred for Gatos at the Central Coast finals last Friday and Saturday. Pease won six of seven matches to clinch third at 145 pounds, and Serwitz took six of seven bouts to nail third at 160.
Miguel was fourth at 135 pounds for the Cats and Escobar was fourth at 171. Jerry Yuhara ended up sixth at 160 pounds for Gatos.
Pease opened the tournament with a pin in 3:25 against Mitty's Michael Japte, but he lost a 6-5 heartbreaker to Sergio Anaya of North Monterey County a match later.
Pease battled back with five straight wins, though, to clinch third place in his weight class.
The senior mat star pinned Matt Montoya of Watsonville in 4:02 and won by fall in 4:32 against Rory Nichols of Gilroy. After a tight 7-6 win over Alvaro Salas of Greenfield, Pease got a little revenge when he pinned Anaya at 4:32. He secured third place with a 12-7 win over James Lejsek of Bellarmine.
Serwitz followed a similar path to his third-place finish at 160, but he won three straight before losing, then finished up with two more wins.
Serwitz pinned in 3:05 against Ivon Gonzalez of Mt. Pleasant and nailed a quick fall in 1:39 against Marcos Ford of Seaside. He came back with a technical fall win over Garreth Gorman of Westmont, but lost 5-2 to Trevor Beatty of St. Francis, who went on to finish second in the weight class.
The Gatos senior edged Jeff Smyth of Bellarmine 2-0, then nipped Froilan Contreras of Overfelt 5-4 to finish third.
Miguel started the tournament off right with three straight wins, but two losses in his next three matches left him in fourth place.
Miguel pinned Salvador Lara of Woodside quickly in just 1:37 in his first match, then won 3-0 over Steve Pinther of Santa Cruz. Miguel won by fall in 3:07 over Nick Crane of Soledad before losing a tough 6-3 decision to Jason Gomez of Gunderson. Gomez went on to finish second in the division.
Miguel, just a sophomore, battled back for a thrilling 2-1 win over Bayardo Sanchez of Fremont to qualify for state, but lost the third-place match 12-3 to Bobby Stack of Terra Nova.
Escobar, a junior, won five of seven matches to finish fourth at 171 pounds and clinch a state berth.
Escobar picked up a forfeit win over Dan Valdez of Burlingame before beating Jonny Chang of St. Francis 8-1. He then lost 9-4 to the eventual division champ, Jatinder Singh of Silver Creek.
Escobar pinned Matt Mallon of Pioneer in 3:58 before winning an exciting 3-2 decision over Taylor Catrett of Live Oak. He pinned Dan Eller of Aptos in 3:58, but lost a 4-3 heartbreaker to Pat Varela of Alvarez in the third-place match.
Joining the fourth state qualifiers as a CCS medal winner as Yuhara, who finished sixth at 152.
Yuhara pinned Andres Sanchez of Oak Grove in 1:48, won by technical fall over Steven Steinoff of Half Moon Bay and won with a quick pin in 1:11 over Josue Orosco of Overfelt in his first three matches.
But he lost 13-0 to ultimate division champ Jesse Padilla of Monterey, then lost his chance for a state berth with a 4-1 loss to Thomas Rogerson of Bellarmine. The senior ended up losing by fall to Marc Gschwend of Valley Christian in the battle for fifth place.
Either other Wildcats qualified for CCS but finished out of the medals.
Bobby Pease won three matches at 119 pounds for the Cats and Adam Morganthaler at 130 and Chris Smith at 189 won two apiece.
B. Pease lost by fall to Robert Acosta of James Lick, but he fought back to pin Kyle Garrone of Capuchino in 3:30 and Dan Hafner of Palo Alto in 4:33 before winning by technical fall over Jason Cacho of Sacred Heart. He lost 6-4 to Jason Yago of Bellarmine, though, to face elimination.
Morganthaler beat Indy Johal of Burlingame 11-1 in his first match, but lost 7-1 to Alvin Cacdac of Fremont. He came back with a 10-8 win over Adam Rechenmacher of Leigh, but lost by fall to Frank Hagg of St. Francis.
Smith opened with back-to-back wins at 189 pounds. He won 10-6 over Matteo Vallejo of Terra Nova and won by technical fall over Mark Angelmovich of Milpitas. But he was pinned by Jason Martinez of Oak Grove and dropped a tough 7-6 nod to Roman DiBiase of Bellarmine.
Ted Ross won his first match at 125 pounds, beating J.D. Moniz of Monterey by fall in 3:39. But he lost 11-2 to Mark Basso of Del Mar and 15-3 to Ron Raquino of Santa Teresa.
Evan McDonald pinned Dave Hazlett of Aptos in 2:34 at 215 pounds, but he lost 15-1 to Matt Engwall of San Benito and 6-5 to Tony Do on Monterey.
Matt Miguel (103 pounds), Matthew Nudelman (114) and Stephen Baker (140) each lost two straight matches.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
