Temecula Valley wrestlers are at it again

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You can’t trust the weatherman who had folks running for the hills last weekend, the brother-in-law who talked you into going halves on a four-bedroom cookie-cutter in Murrieta three years ago or the sportswriters who claim the Lakers really are that good, but you can count on the Temecula Valley wrestling team to be solid year in and year out.

The Golden Bears -- and don’t even think about calling them the Golden Hawks because I wrote that a couple years ago and, next time I saw co-Coach Arnie Alpert, I thought he was going to put me in an ankle lock -- just finished third last weekend at a national-caliber tournament in Clovis.

Jake Meredith, who finished seventh in state at 171 pounds as a junior last season, won the same weight class with a pin and was voted the most valuable wrestler of the upper-weight divisions. Four other Temecula Valley wrestlers finished in the top five.

After the Golden Bears finished 12th in state last season, which was second among Southern Section teams, Alpert complained of the section’s qualifying process, which is longer than those of the Northern Californian sections.

Therefore, he said, SS wrestlers are already at a disadvantage once they reach state because they are more beat up and have been cutting weight [malnourished] much longer than their rivals.

Now that’s something I can believe.

-- Dan Arritt