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Wrestling: Temecula Valley wins big at Masters

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The Golden Bears had a pair of champions, advanced a school-record eight wrestlers to the state tournament and ran away with their third team title in four years at the Southern Section Masters meet at Carter High in Rialto.

Temecula Valley senior Erik Reyes defeated Jeremy Gendreau of St. John Bosco, 7-3, in the 103-pound finals for his first Masters title, and teammate Jake Meredith downed Nikolai Crouch of Santa Fe, 6-0, in the 171-pound finals to finish as a Masters champion for the second year in a row. The Golden Bears, who were the only team to have more than one champion, outscored runner-up Santa Ana Calvary Chapel, 178-114.

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Six other Temecula Valley wrestlers finished in the top nine to advance to next weekend’s state wrestling championships at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield -- Dylan Barralas (third at 112), Marco Decaro (seventh at 135), Mario Decaro (second at 140), Patrick Martinez (second at 160), Javier Hernandez (fifth at 215) and Eduardo Marquez (second at heavyweight). As I discussed earlier this week, the Golden Bears had never qualified more than six wrestlers for the state tournament.

In addition to Meredith, three other wrestlers repeated as Masters champions -- Northview junior Steven Salinas at 112, South Hills senior Thomas Williams at 119 and El Modena senior Vinny Pisani at 135. Two other returning champions did not duplicate their success from a year ago -- Santa Fe senior Marcus Orona was third at 119 and Santa Monica junior Sami Syed was sixth at 130.

Following up on a couple other topics I recently discussed ... San Dimas 125-pound senior Angel Garcia did, in fact, win his first Masters title. And the Inland Division heavyweights continued to dominate, claiming four of the top five spots at Masters (lead by champion Willie Hernandez of Norte Vista).

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-- Chuck Schilken, guest blogger

-- Image from www.wrestlingsbest.com.

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