When facing a wrestling team with six boys in the top 20 in the state and eight on national dual teams, an opponent knows it is going to be a long day on the mat.
Or actually, a short day if it results in a lot of pins. That was the case on Wednesday night at Will C. Wood as the Wildcats faced off against the Vacaville High Bulldogs, who swept the home team 81-0, recording all their victories on pins or forfeits except for the final match of the night, which Vacaville won by decision.
Vacaville, a perennial powerhouse, was well stocked in all weight classes, resulting in forfeits in the lower weight classes. Wood has suffered attrition in large part due to COVID.
“You’ve got kids’ parents being fearful of them getting COVID and not coming out,” said Wood head coach Jeremy Barnett. “You’ve got kids doing distance learning that may not even be in Vacaville and then you are chasing kids down and they are not really on campus for you to check on for most of the year… With a year of them not doing what they are used to, a lot of the smaller kids got bigger. They just didn’t have their normal outlets. Everybody got bigger so we don’t even have little guys.”
Vacaville is deeper and had all their little guys, who picked up forfeits in the seven lowest weight classes.
So the wrestling didn’t begin until Wood’s Alexander DeCamp faced Vacaville’s Ethan Birch in the 154-pound division. Birch made short work of it, pinning his opponent 40 seconds into the match.
At 162 pounds, Vacaville’s Jason Brauning was almost as quick in dispatching Wood’s Dominic Barnett, pinning him with 48 seconds left in the first two-minute period.
At 172 pounds, the Bulldogs’ Arjun Nagra kept up the pin parade, nailing Wood’s Jakob Smithson with 43 seconds left in the second period.
Francisco Ochoa racked up a 9-2 lead on Wood’s Stephen Lukens before pinning him with 15 seconds left in the second period in the 180-pound match.
Ochoa said he used a move to pin his opponent that his father recently taught him, the suck back. With Ochoa in the bottom position, he turned Lukens to a sitting position, got behind him and put double underhooks on him. Then he put his chin on the trapezius area of Lukens’ shoulder, pulled him and rolled him on his back to set up the pin.
“I went out there and I did what I do in practice,” said Ochoa, “Work my underhooks and my snap singles. That was kind of my whole match.”
Underhooks are hooking your arm under the opponent’s armpit. A snap single is a move where you quickly hook your arm under one of the opponent’s legs.
Ochoa, a junior, has been on varsity for two years and has paid his dues, wrestling under accomplished grapplers Cole Chapman and Coulter Malone.
“I practiced every day with them my freshman year, had them beat me up,” said Ochoa. “That’s how I got better in my wrestling and now I’m on varsity.”
Vacaville recorded its fifth straight pin at 197 pounds, Logan Kuehl nailing Connor Lenke with just five seconds left in the second period.
At 222 pounds, Wood’s Michael Olague and Vacaville Mills Sweany were locked in a 0-0 battle after two periods. But in the third period, Sweany escaped, then got a takedown and turned it into a pin with 56 seconds remaining in the match.
Wood’s Charles Horton and Vacaville’s Jai Guerra staged a competitive contest in the heavyweight division. Guerra admitted that Horton, the bigger of the two, gave him quite a test.
“I guess I eventually got a little bit tired from how big he was,” said the sophomore.
After building a 5-2 lead (one point coming on a Horton penalty for employing a full nelson), Guerra managed an escape in the last period to come out on top 6-2.
“When I went out there I wanted to be aggressive,” he said. “I wanted to try to do two-on-ones.”
A two-on-one is a move where if your opponent puts his left hand, for example, around the back of your neck, you turn your shoulders to your left, reach across with your left hand and grab his wrist while using your right hand to grab his left elbow. You then slide your right hand up under his shoulder and tuck your head against his. This puts you in a power position for your next move.
“I’m really happy for Mills and Jai,” said Vacaville head coach Clint Birch. “Those are young kids that we’ve been working really hard with and they’re starting to show some progress.”
Eight of his wrestlers in three different age groups will be traveling in the next couple of weeks to Indiana, Illinois and Oklahoma to compete in national dual meets.
Both coaches talked about the challenges of having a season in the midst of a pandemic.
“It’s been a disappointment but we knew that coming on,” said Birch. “Our goals had to do with getting our kids ready for national competitions this summer. Because Vanden forfeited, Fairfield forfeited, Rodriguez has a new coach. So we just had to set our expectations at a different level.”
“You are roughly talking about a month, five weeks if you’re talking about someone who has never wrestled before,” said Barnett. “We’ve definitely seen progress. The guys have adapted well, but you’re kind of behind the eight ball… We have COVID tests every single day, masks inside and outside. There is a lot of extra stuff that has gone into this year that has made it difficult.”
Ten graduating Wood seniors were honored before the match: Ty Parado, Lenke, Barnett, Felix Lara, Julian Beltramo, Lucas Foster, Olague, DeCamp, Andrew Nielsen and Lukens.
“This is a great group of seniors,” said Barnett. “All but one of them have wrestled all four years for us. And they’re coming from a program where they have only wrestled at Will C. Wood. They are all homegrown kids. So I’ll go down swinging with those guys because they’ve been with me from day one.”
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Vacaville dominates Wood on wrestling mat - Vacaville Reporter
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