ORANGE – The Villa Park wrestling team jumped out to a strong start Wednesday in a Crestview League dual.
The Spartans won the first eight matches to build a 30-point lead and finished with a 39-18 road victory over El Modena.
The Spartans clinched second place in the Crestview League with the victory. Yorba Linda finished first in the league. The Mustangs defeated El Dorado, 45-18 Wednesday for their fourth consecutive league title.
“I thought we wrestled really well,” Villa Park coach Aaron Cross said. “Everybody did what we planned for them to do.
“We’re still a young team and we were able to get two wins out of the three (league) duals.”
As the second-place team, Villa Park has the right to apply for an at-large berth to the CIF-SS Dual Championships on Feb. 6. Cross said he will likely not apply.
Ryan Aryan (108) opened the match with a 6-0 victory for the Spartans. Of their first eight victories, four earned the Spartans bonus points. Raul Lopez won by major decision (13-3) at 113 pounds, as did Cameron Sorrell (9-1) at 120 and Josh Luton (16-5) at 140. Caleb Reynolds added a victory by fall at 147.
One of those in the streak that Cross pointed to as being a key victory happened at 128 as Noah Luna edged Oswaldo Calderon, 3-2.
“Our kid (Luna) is basically a first-year full-time varsity guy, and we ended up getting a win in a tight match,” Cross said. “That was one that you kind of expected to come up on the short end of the stick, with a pretty experienced kid going up against an inexperienced kid (Luna), but Noah Luna wrestled well in that match and got the win.”
Villa Park led, 30-0, after the first eight matches.
Brian Fabela (162) won the first match for El Modena, 3-1. Danny Perez followed with an 11-9 victory at 172, and Andrew Helfrich won by fall at 184, cutting the score to 30-12 with three matches left.
James Antolin clinched the victory for the Spartans with his 5-1 victory over 197 pounds.
El Modena’s Conor Donnelly, ranked No. 1 in the county, won by fall in 24 seconds at 222.
Tyler Williams ended the match with a victory by fall at heavyweight for the Spartans.
