Hoping to send 14 wrestlers to CCS meet
When the Tri County Athletic League wrestling championship gets
under way tomorrow morning at Gilroy High School the San Benito
High School wrestlers will have one goal in mind: To qualify all 14
weight classes to the Central Coast Section meet.
Hoping to send 14 wrestlers to CCS meet
When the Tri County Athletic League wrestling championship gets under way tomorrow morning at Gilroy High School the San Benito High School wrestlers will have one goal in mind: To qualify all 14 weight classes to the Central Coast Section meet.
What that means is that each Baler wrestler must finish in the top four in the league meet to do so. It’s not going to be an easy task, according to Baler coach Matt Olejnik, but it will be vital if the No. 3 ranked Balers are to have any shot at ousting No. 1 ranked Gilroy or No. 2 ranked Los Gatos in the battle for a section title Feb. 23 and 24.
“It’s realistic that we could qualify everyone from league,” Olejnik said. “But it’s also possible that we will send only 12 guys to CCS.”
As it stands right now, no team has any realistic chance of ousting the Mustangs of Gilroy High, who are trying to win their fifth league and CCS title in a row. But if Olejnik can send enough wrestlers to CCS and Gilroy were to have an off day, things would be at least a little more interesting.
In order to send all 14 wrestlers to the section meet, Olejnik needs to have a big day out of three wrestlers in particular that are on the qualifying fence but have enough skills to shock some people in tomorrow’s league meet.
One of those wrestlers is freshman Tim Christensen, who wrestles in the 103-pound class. Another is sophomore Steven Borba, who opted to move up to the 140-pound class in order to help his team out after a hole was made in that division when senior Luis Baroico moved down into the 135-pound division.
Olejnik is also hoping for solid outings from senior Jesus Sagereo in the 130-pound class.
Two other wrestlers that seem poised to surprise some people in the upper divisions are the Balers’ 215-pounder Ryan Cowell and junior heavyweight Buddy Barazza.
“Ryan is a senior but this is his first year wrestling for us,” Olejnik said. “He’s a fast learner and the guy seems to get better every week.”
If all of those wrestlers have solid outings on Saturday, the Balers would be in a good position to send all 14 starters from each division to CCS.
Once at CCS, they’ll have to keep the momentum going. To have a chance to win CCS or at least edge past No. 2 ranked Los Gatos, Olejnik pointed out that he’s going to need to “get some guys in the finals,” which is critical to overall team scoring.
“Realistically, winning CCS is going to be tough,” Olejnik said. “But you’ve got to go in there to win – it’s why we play. If we end up taking second, I think we’ve done about as well as we could this year. If we’re worse than fourth, then it wasn’t a good year.”
John Bagley can be reached at [email protected].
