Saratoga News

Sports

Nguyen heads to CCS after winning league mat crown

By Dick Sparrer

Sometimes the Central Coast Section wrestling tournament turns into something of a numbers game.

The more wrestlers a team has qualify for the tournament, the better chance that team has of contending for the tourney title. Of course, having a couple of individual champions doesn't hurt either.

Gilroy had 13 wrestlers in the 14 weight classes last year, and the Mustangs ran away with the team title. They finished with nine CCS placers, five of them winning individual titles.

Gilroy will return a large contingent of wrestlers to the section tourney coming up Feb. 23-24 at Independence and Overfelt in San Jose as the Mustangs shoot for an impressive fifth straight championship. There are a few schools, though, who hope to end that streak, and Los Gatos is one of them.

Gatos will send 14 wrestlers to the CCS event after the Wildcats qualified everyone in their line-up while winning the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League championship on Feb. 10.

Returning CCS placers Naveed Bagheri (125 pounds) and Geoff Doss (140) will lead the Los Gatos efforts. Doss, Alan Howard (130), Calvin Hawkes (135), Sean Goodison (152) and Nick Kalpin (215) all head to CCS after winning league titles. Bagheri was second to Fremont great Boris Novachkov at the league tourney.

Matt Anzalone (103), Jack Hogan (112), Marcel Schwager (119), Victor Gonzalez (145), Josh Curtis (160), Mitch Benedetti (171), Gurbaksh Sohal (189) and Wes Bollinger (275) are other Los Gatos wrestlers who have also qualified for CCS.

Novachkov will be back on the mat for the Firebirds as he tries to win a second straight CCS title. Novachkov was the 103-pound champion last year, and will shoot for the 125-pound title this season.

Like Novachkov, Saratoga sophomore Nathan Nguyen earned a trip to CCS by winning an individual title. Nguyen was first in the SCVAL at 103 pounds and he tops a list of Saratoga qualifiers that includes Doug Macklin (135), Jasper Loren (140), Richard Macklin (119), Samir Mathur (152) and Danny Gold (145).

Lynbrook's Vincent Huang (119), James Kim (135) and Nick Walters (160) have earned section berths along with Zac Cook (173), Jacob Garcia (147), Zac Elliot (154) and Brian Santana (191) of Prospect and Cameron Gustafson (142), Abe Matsui (132), Roberto Lopez (121), Josh Millante (162) and Chris Sutton (137) of Westmont. Gustafson was a champion in the Blossom Valley Athletic League.