
Adin Duenas (Gilroy, Calif./Cal State Fullerton) has been named TheMat.com Wrestler of the Week for Feb. 23-March 1.
The fourth-seeded Duenas was named Outstanding Wrestler after winning the Pac-10 Conference Championships at 141 pounds on Feb. 28 in Davis, Calif.
Duenas knocked off No. 1 seed Levi Jones of Boise State 3-1 in overtime in the semifinals before he downed No. 2 seed Filip Navachkov of Cal Poly 9-3 in the finals.
Duenas, a junior, qualified for the 2009 NCAAs after placing third in the Pac-10 tournament.
http://www.themat.com/section.php?section_id=3&page=showarticle&ArticleID=21589
Congratulations:
Varsity Coaches: Greg Varella, Jessie Delgado, Mike Koester
Boys CCS Varsity Wrestlers: Leif Dominguez, Rodney Balaharia, Jessie Delgado, Willie Fox, Blake Kastle, Mikey Lucero, Adam Rosso, Vincent Aboyets, Dominc Kastle, Andrew Toste, Luis Barragon
Girls CCS Varsity Wrestlers: Jasmine Yanez, Brittany Lorenzana
Team Scores – Boys
1. TCAL-Gilroy 258.0
2. WCAL-Saint Francis 193.0
3. WCAL-Bellarmine 120.0
Team Results – Girls (2 wrestlers)
…
10. TCAL – Gilroy 53.5
From Gilroy Dispatch:
125lbs Jessie Delgado Finals
Congratulations to all Gilroy CCS wrestlers!
Leif Dominguez 103lbs, 1st place
Jasmine Yanez 108lbs, 1st place
Rodney Balaharia 119lbs, 2nd place
Brittany Lorenzana 122lbs, 2nd place
Jessie Delgado 125lbs, 1st place
Blake Kastle 135lbs, 1st place
Mikey Lucero (trying to upload picture)
Vincent Aboytes 153lbs, 1st place
Dominic Kastle 160lbs, 1st place
Andrew Toste (Trying to upload photo)
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105lbs rodriguez vs. fortado
114lbs egleston vs. nguyen
121lbs garcia vs. davila
127lbs Delgado vs Hulstine
132lbs fox vs. linares
137lbs kastl vs. perez
142lbs zarate vs. gomez
147lbs pereria vs. hartman
154lbs rodenbaugh vs. johnson
162lbs kastl vs. heka
173lbs lozano vs. edwards
191lbs delagarza vs. juarez
217 lbs corona vs. holmes
Hwt elor vs. barragan
Gilroy is on the road to attempt to earn a consecutive 8th CCS championship!
If you can make no other event this year… this is the one you have to make.
CCS is held at Independence High School in San Jose on Friday and Saturday February 19th and 20th.
The finals are on February 20th at 7pm!
Come support Gilroy Wrestling and wear “Gilroy Blue” if you can!
http://www.gilroydispatch.com/sports/263017-wrestling-mustangs-are-tcal-champs
Feb 6, 2010
By Josh Weaver
GILROY – Seven Mustangs wrapped up individual titles as the GHS wrestling team toppled the competition at Saturday’s Tri-County Athletic League championship tournament, winning the team crown with 257 overall points.
Already capturing the league title, going undefeated in dual meets for the eighth straight season, the Mustangs left no doubt at the top of the leader board at this year’s tournament, using 39 points to separate themselves from second place San Benito – a much different outcome in comparison to last year’s fiasco at the top in which the top-three finishers (Palma, Gilroy and San Benito) were spaced by a mere 4.5 points.
The Chieftains eked out the victory by .5 points over the Mustangs. Palma finished fourth Saturday with 146.5 points.
Nine wrestlers appeared in the finals Saturday, two more than second place San Benito’s seven grapplers.
Leif Dominguez (105), Jesse Delgado (125), Willie Fox (132), Blake Kastl (137), Vincente Aboytes (154), Dominic Kastl (162) and Luis Barragan (287) took home first-place medals in their respective weight classes.
Rodney Balajadia (119) and Adam Rosso (147) finished in second place, and Mike Lucero (140) and Andrew Toste (189) achieved third place, punching their tickets to the Central Coast Section championships.
“CCS is coming up and they are getting stronger,” head coach Greg Varela said.
The top-six wrestlers from the TCAL in each weight class advance to CCS. Jasmine Yanez, who won the girls state championship last weekend, will also participate.
“I can’t wait to get back in the room and grind it out,” Varela said with a huge grin on his face. “I know for sure what we need to work on.”
The CCS championships take place in two weeks at Independence High School in San Jose. The Mustangs are seven-time defending champs.
In the past, only one week separated the league tournament and the CCS championships, this year, however, the Mustangs have two weeks to prepare and recuperate.
“I think it will affect us in a good way,” Barragan said. “It gives us time to get in even better shape. It gives us a lot more time to focus on technique. Going into CCS a lot of us are already focused on one person.”
Dominguez, a freshman, had his opponent, Johnny Alonzo of Alisal searching for escapes from the get go in the 103-pound finals. Dominguez posted points in a fury of take downs and near-falls, working his way to a 16-0 technical fall victory.
“I try to listen to my coaches,” Dominguez said. “I’m not a guy who likes to show off, so I just take one match at a time.
Defending state champion and three-time state placer, Delgado, demonstrated another methodical dismantling of a challenger in the 125-pound finals, racking up 22 points in a technical fall triumph over Arturo Morado of Alisal.
Fox, Aboytes, the Kastl brothers and Barragan all came away with pins, with Barragan getting the nod in just 46 seconds.
“It boosted my confidence,” Barragan said. “I hadn’t been able to win a single tournament this year and I’m not used to that.”
Arguably the most intense showdown of the afternoon came in the 119-pound finals, where the Mustangs’ Balajadia took on San Benito’s best wrestler, Junior Davila.
In a rematch of last Wednesday’s pairing in the league-dual meet finale, the two went back and forth, each taking single-leg shots at one another in search of the match-changing attack.
Davila jumped in front with a take down in the first period, but Balajadia responded in the second, taking a more aggressive approach and recording two take downs.
Davila went up 5-4 heading into the third period and capitalized on a Balajadia missed takedown, picking up the senior and slamming him to the mat for two points, to secure a 7-5 win.
“I shouldn’t have given that take down,” said Balajadia, who will most likely get another crack at Davila at CCS. “I just have to get stronger over the next two weeks.”
The Mustangs are currently ranked fourth in the state and first in CCS, according to The California Wrestler.
2010 TCAL Championships
TEAMS
1, Gilroy, 257; 2, San Benito, 218; 3, Alisal, 170; 4, Palma, 146.5; 5, North Salinas 105; 6, Salinas, 99; 7, Everett Alvarez, 24.5.
INDIVIDUAL
103 – 1, L. Dominguez, Gilroy; 2, J. Alonzo, Alisal; 3, A. Espinoza, Everett Alvarez; 4, N. Busby, Palma; 5, A. Gatto, San Benito; 6, A. Fragoso, North Salinas.
112 – 1, E. Lopez, Alisal; 2, N. Renteria, Salinas; 3, J. Gonzalez, Palma; 4, R. Rodriguez, San Benito; 5, G. Martinez, North Salinas; 6, J. Yanez, Gilroy.
119 – 1, J. Davila, San Benito; 2, R. Balajadia, Gilroy; 3, C. Moreno, Alisal; 4, S. Eastman, Palma; 5, L. Combs, North Salinas; 6, A. Farias, Salinas.
125 – 1, J. Delgado, Gilroy; 2, A. Morado, Alisal; 3, J. Garcia, San Benito; 4, C. Palacios, Palma; 5, A. Galapon Olivas, Salinas.
130 – 1, W. Fox, Gilroy; 2, Z. Rodriguez, San Benito; 3, A. Nunez, North Salinas; 4, O. Mendez, Alisal; 5, N. Short, Palma; 6, C. Perales, Salinas.
135 – 1, B. Kastl, Gilroy; 2, E. Meza, Alisal; 3, E. Henry, San Benito; 4, D. Proa, Salinas; 5, A. Reyes, Palma.
140 – 1, E. Tapia, Alisal; 2, M. Soto, San Benito; 3, M. Lucero, Gilroy; 4, A. Noza, North Salinas; 5, E. Farfan, Palma.
145 – 1, T. Christenson, San Benito; 2, A. Rosso, Gilroy; 3, R. Sarmiento, Palma; 4, E. Antonio, North Salinas; 5, C. Ivey, Salinas; 6, A, Gonzalez, Alisal.
152 – 1, V. Aboytes, Gilroy; 2, S. McVannel, Salinas; 3, N. Abulencia, Palma; 4, J. Antonio, North Salinas; 5, E. Ortega, San Benito; 6, J. Ochoa, Alisal.
160 – 1, D. Kastl, Gilroy; 2, M. Sarmiento, Palma; 3, D. Guzman, Salinas; 4, J. Raine, San Benito; 5, H. Bueno, Alisal; 6, J. Rodriguez, North Salinas.
171 – 1, A. Berber, Alisal; 2, L. Diller, San Benito; 3, A. Martinez, Palma; 4, B. Torricer, Gilroy.
189 – 1, M. Martin del Campo, San Benito; 2, N. Castillo, Salinas; 3, A. Toste, Gilroy; 4, R. Galvan, Everett Alvarez; 5, S. Nakamura, North Salinas; 6, J. Pulealii, Palma.
215 – 1, A. Davis, San Benito; 2, G. Omictin, North Salinas; 3, J. Talauban, Palma.
285 – 1, L. Barragan, Gilroy; 2, B. Pulealii, Palma; 3, T. Avila, Alisal; 4, C. Flores, North Salinas; 5, M. Avila, Salinas; 6, N. Angelo, San Benito.
GILROY – Abalone diving, rodeo and wrestling – three activities that aren’t usually grouped together, and three activities that most might not include on a bucket list.
But for Gilroy High wrestlers Dominic and Blake Kastl, those interests, among others, are what separates them from the rest – not to mention the countless trophies, medals and championships the two brothers have racked up over the years wreaking havoc out on the mat.
“There is a season for it,” Blake said with a shy, yet in some ways proud, grin about the obscure hobby of hunting for abalone, a type of edible sea snail. “My dad has been doing it since before we were born. We go take two-hour dives. We bring them home and eat them. They are good.
“We used to be cowboys, too,” he adds with a laugh. “I broke a collar bone my eighth-grade year riding a steer.”
Those unique hobbies and myriad of accomplishments only scratch the surface of an intriguing bond built through wrestling but carried out beyond the humid, sweat-filled practice room.
Dominic, a senior, and Blake, a sophomore, transferred to GHS this year after their family relocated from Half Moon Bay. Already accomplished prep wrestlers – Dominic has three Central Coast Section championships and Blake a National High School Coaches Association National Championship – the impact the two have had on the perennially formidable Mustangs’ wrestling program is immeasurable. Oh, and they have a younger brother, Mario, a sixth-grader who attends and wrestles for South Valley.
“He’s probably going to be the best one out of the three of us,” Blake said. “He was exposed to better coaching and technique at a younger age.”
When the expenses of private school at St. Francis High in Mountain View began to pile up, Dominic said his parents made the decision to move to Gilroy, a choice that took him by surprise, but his familiarity with the community’s passion for wrestling kept him at ease and made the transfer to a new school all much easier to digest.
“It was sprung on us,” Dominic said. “I wasn’t sad or anything. It had to be done. I had been to tournaments with Jesse (Delgado) and Vince (Aboytes) and I knew they were good kids.”
There is of course a brotherly rivalry, both confess to wanting to be better or outdo each other. That sibling rivalry in the end, though, adds to the relationship rather than divides it. In victory or defeat each is there for reassurance or a figurative slap in the face as motivation to continue to improve.
“When I would go to tournaments and watch (Dominic), I would wear my singlet and want to wrestle,” the younger Blake said. “I always wanted to strive to be like him and be as good as him. Dom never wants to lose to his little brother or have me accomplish something he hasn’t. It’s better when we both win.”
Even still, even with the desire to be better, it is hard to imagine what motivates an individual to continually take the punishment the sport is eager to dish out day in and day out.
“It’s just wanting to get my hand raised, wanting to be the best and go to college,” Blake said.
The list of injuries an athlete could suffer even before the collegiate ranks are staggering and even painful to read; bruises, cuts, dislocations, surgeries and cauliflower ear, to name a few. Both have had knee surgeries in the past year and a half, with Blake’s keeping him out of action for the first month-plus this season and Dominic’s threatening his chances of a three-peat at the CCS championships last season.
“Last year at Cupertino, I went to shoot in and my knee locked up,” Dominic said, moving his body to add a visual as he recalled his injury. “The guy got me on my butt. I tried to get up but the knee just gave out. I had to have surgery on it. Funny enough I was wrestling a Gilroy guy.”
Despite the setback, Dominic went on to capture his third straight CCS title.
“My family is a never-quit kind of family,” Dominic said. “During the season you have practice and you have to cut weight. It starts to grind on you. But when you come out at a tournament and you have your friends and family there and you win, that’s what it’s all about.”
The sacrifices made to the sport aren’t always understandable to everyone. But one no-no that most can relate to is fast food. With all the restrictions on diet to ensure that they can keep at their wrestling weights, there is no fast food allowed.
“You get used to it, it’s not a big deal,” Blake said, consenting that after the season he will probably indulge in a large cookies-and-cream milkshake.
With the Central Coast Section championships fast approaching, the Kastl’s are beginning to find their groove. Both have back-to-back tournament victories in the last two weeks at the Mid-Cal Invitational and the Overfelt Classic.
“Everything we do is to prepare us for the state meet,” Dominic said.
Each has aspirations of not just qualifying or placing, but to finish first at the state tournament held the first weekend in March in Bakersfield.
Dominic has already signed on to wrestle at CSU San Luis Obispo, joining fellow senior Jesse Delgado. Blake, who hasn’t given a lot of thought to college yet, will be a senior when Mario steps onto the mat as a Mustang.
For now, the state meet is the No. 1 priority.