By DICK SPARRER
The league season ended for most of the wrestlers in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League last weekend.
But nine wrestlers from Fremont aren't quite finished yet.
Jamie Kashitani tops the list of nine Firebirds who placed high enough at the SCVAL finals last weekend to qualify for the Central Coast Section tournament.
Cupertino, dual match champions with a 5-1 record, won the title at the league finals. The Pioneers ran up 170 1/2 points to finish well ahead of runnerup Santa Clara (158 1/2) in the team standings. Wilcox (157 points) ended up third with Los Gatos fourth (132 1/2), Monta Vista (124) fifth, Los Altos (112) sixth and Fremont (90) seventh.
The Pioneers dominated the tournament they hosted on Saturday night with 10 placers in the 14 weight classes. The top five placers in each division advance to the CCS tournament Feb. 21-22 at Santa Clara.
And nine of the wrestlers in that CCS field will be Firebirds.
Kashitani finished second at 130 pounds to lead all Fremont placers at the league meet. Andrew Monarch ended up third at 140.
Fourths went to Vi Hang (103), Emilio Vallejos (135) and Chuck Cabrera (171), and fifths went to Kawa Zarif (119), Joseph Ramirez (189), Donny Mozzetti (215) and Alfredo Luvian (heavyweight).
In dual match action last week, Fremont finished the year by dropping a tough 39-27 decision to Monta Vista. The Firebirds ended the league season with a 1-5 record.
A pin and four technical falls sparked the Matadors to the victory.
Mitchell Welch pinned with 40 seconds left in the first round at 189 pounds to wrap up the team win for Monta Vista. Fremont pinned in each of the last two bouts, but the Matadors had enough to hold on for the victory.
Ramirez pinned with 50 seconds left in the first round at 215 pounds, and Luvian nailed a quick 28-second fall at 275 pounds, but Monta Vista had already clinched the team win.
Hang won a 9-8 thriller at 112 pounds, and Zarif pulled out an 11-7 victory at 125 to help the Firebirds stay right with the Matadors in the lower weights.
But Kashitani lost a 6-4 heartbreaker at 130 to begin a string of four straight losses for Fremont.
Monarch broke the string with a rousing 16-5 victory at 152 pounds, and Cabrera came through with a technical fall for a 20-3 victory at 171. But Welch's win a match later was all Monta Vista needed to wrap up the team victory.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 19, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.