Vacaville gets best of Rodriguez on mat
FAIRFIELD — Mat time is the key this early in the prep wrestling season, and there were plenty of grapplers getting some needed experience against worthy opponents Wednesday night.
In a clash of the two best teams in Solano County, Vacaville got the best of Rodriguez in a 46-24 victory in the Mustangs’ gym. The score could have been slightly more in Vacaville’s favor as the Bulldogs are still missing a couple of wrestlers who are still trying to get into shape after Vacaville’s run to the section football title.
It was mainly the middle of the lineup that pulled out the win for the Bulldogs, getting six straight victories from the 126-pound class up to the 160-pounders.
“I thought we looked pretty good through the middle of the lineup,” Bulldogs co-head coach Adam Wight said. “We still need to get out upper guys to the right weights, and then I think we’re going to be pretty good.”
Rodriguez grabbed an early 3-0 lead when Andrew Sta Maria picked up a 4-1 win at 106 pounds, but the Bulldogs took a 6-3 lead when Glenn Peralta picked up a second-round pin at 113.
The Mustangs’ Lathan Liles knotted the score at 6 with a gutsy 9-7 decision over freshman Anthony Hernandez at 120.
Then Vacaville simply pulled away.
Kasey Klaus got a technical fall at 126 pounds before Matt Smith picked up a 13-3 major decision at 132. Then came three straight pins by Jake Humble, Hayden Fry and Zach Dawson before Seth Lowrie won a 15-2 major decision at 160 to give Vacaville a comfortable 37-6 advantage.
Rodriguez’s Anthony Salazar stopped the bleeding momentarily with a pin of his own at 170, then the Mustangs’ Henry Medeiros won by forfeit at 182 to cut the lead to 37-18.
But Chris Lai won a decision at 195 and Jeremy Sweany won by fall at 220 to up the lead to 46-18 before the Mustangs’ Anthony Ishaq wrapped up the night with a third-period pin of his own at heavyweight.
Rodriguez coach Mike Clarkston knows Vacaville is a tough opponent but also knows he team is still in need of some work.
“(Vacaville) is the better team, but I think we could have shown a little better,” the coach said. “It’s still early (in the season). We’ve only had one tournament and two other duals.
“For one, we need to show up ready to wrestle . . . work on things we’re getting beat on. I think those things will help with a little more time. . . . We’ve got quite a few matches over (winter) break. When you wrestle good guys, they’re going to find your holes, then we get to go back and work on them (in practice).”
As for Wight and the Bulldogs, he knows the season is also young, but wished he could have more dual meets with a quality team like Rodriguez.
“We just need more mat time. Sometimes they just wrestle themselves into shape,” Wight said. “I’m looking forward to next year when (Rodriguez) comes into (the Monticello Empire League).
“It’s refreshing to wrestle a dual meet like this with full lineups in JV and varsity, as opposed to wrestling Fairfield, who fields four guys. That is going to be nice, to have these guys in the league next year, someone who wants to compete.”
Reach Brian Arnold at 427-6969 or barnold@dailyrepublic.net.
Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=117391
Posted by Brian Arnold
on Dec 14 2011.
Filed under Featured Sports, High school, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
