Hales helps El Dorado take title
PLACENTIA - With the match on the line and a Century League title there for the taking, the sixth-ranked El Dorado wrestling team turned to Luke Chadwick Hales.
Wednesday’s dual started at 140 pounds, meaning, Hales would end the night at 135.
He delivered.
El Dorado trailed by one point heading into Hales’ match and, after giving up an early takedown to Ryan DeClark, Hales rallied for the 6-2 decision, giving El Dorado a 29-27 home victory.
El Dorado improves to 5-0. Villa Park falls to 4-1.
“He got the early takedown and I was a little worried,” Hales said. “But I was confident in my training that I could come back and recover those points and win the match for my team."
In the second period, Hales tied his match at 2-2 with an escape. With 17 seconds left in the second period he scored a takedown for a 4-2 lead heading into the third.
“In this sport, everybody has to do their job. If I would have lost that match, then I could have said well the other guy lost, but everybody did their job and my job was to win and that’s what I had to do. There’s a lot of pressure on me because I have to win to win the dual. That’s one of the reasons my coach put me in that situation. You knew I could act under pressure and pull out a big win.”
In the end, the two teams split the 14 individual matches, winning seven apiece.
El Dorado took a 19-15 lead on a fall at 215 by Dante Duke and held onto the lead all the way to 130s where Keith Schwartzman put the Spartans back on top, 27-26 with a 6-1 victory over Trent Morris.
“You get your CIF runner-up wrestling the last match, that’s a comforting feeling,” El Dorado coach Steve Lawson said of Hales.
El Dorado won the first match of the night at 140, but Villa Park took the next three: Gavin Taketa by decision at 145 and Spencer Theissen (152) and Luke Warneke (162) by fall to take a 15-4 lead.
Anthony DiPasqua scored a big victory for El Dorado, winning by fall at 171 that started the comeback.
“We’re trying to come up and catch them,” Villa Park coach Aaron Cross said. “I thought our guys wrestled well …. 7-7 on matches. They beat us on bonus points. They were the better team tonight.”
