This has been a season of adjustments for the Santa Ana wrestling team.
Coach Scott Glabb has brought in a pair of new assistants from Iowa (Danny Woiwor and Jesse Doyle) who offer a new style and so far the team has soaked up all of the knowledge and that was evident again this weekend at the Asics SoCal Challenge at Tustin High.
The Saints dominated the field, finishing with 273 points, nine medalists, three champions and four finalists.
“I thought today we performed really well,” assistant coach Woiwor said. “There’s some areas that we still need to work and improve on, but for the most part, when we were in positions that we were familiar with, we won all those positions.
“We tell them to stick to plan and you’ll be fine, but it is when some of our kids today started adjusting to their opponent’s style. Part of it is getting them to stick to the plan and also having them believe in themselves and be confident and realize they’re good enough to win these matches.
Ricardo Solorio (113 pounds), Joey Daniel (195) and Alex Blanco (220) captured titles.
Jose Mata (106), Andrew Maldonado (120), Ricardo Navarette (126) and Miguel Ramos (132) all finished second.
“I listened to my coaches,” Solorio said. “Last year, all I knew was takedowns. We never really worked on top, but this year we worked on that more and now we’re getting takedowns with riding.”
Solorio’s day was interesting considering he had to lose 5 pounds before the start of the second day.
He was able to do so and ended the day with an 18-7 victory in the final.
“I’ve never seen him wrestle like that before,” Woiwor said. “Attack, attack, nonstop … he was an absolute monster through the whole tournament.”
Daniel won his match in the final, 10-4, and Blanco won by fall.
Capistrano Valley and Fountain Valley had two individual champions: Brandon Hernandez (132) and Gerardo Hernandez (182) for the Cougars and Blake Vasquez (160) and Karson Ayres (138) for the Barons.
Other county champions were Ryan Gutierrez (Brea Olinda, 126), Andrew Longmore (Tustin, 145) and Irvine’s Brandon Tierney (171).
Yorba Linda finished second with 181.5 points and seven medalists, including finalist Dillon Herrera (171).
At the Peoria (Ariz.) Invitational:
Servite finished third with seven medalists and two individual champions (Marcos Polanco, 106 and Troy Madrigal, 145).
Liam Cronin wrestled up a weight at 120 pounds and finished third. The Friars had just nine wrestlers in the tournament.
Mater Dei’s Jed Smith won at 182.
At the Doc Buchanan Invitational:
Calvary Chapel’s brother tandem of Justin (160) and Jeremy Thomas (170) both finished second at the two-day tournament in Clovis.
At 106, Calvary Chapel’s Elijah Palacio finished third. Calvary Chapel was sixth in the final team standings.
At the Nogales Super Champs
Laguna Hills finished second at the two-day tournament, scoring 268.5 points. The Hawks led the field with 12 medalists including champions: Matt De La Riva (145) and James Oliveros (152).
El Modena finished fifth, led by finalists Alex Martinez (145) and Conor Donnelly (220).
Contact the writer: dcalhoun@ocregister.com
