Revenge is Sweet for Arroyo’s Tran

EL CAJON —  Cam Tran and his Arroyo teammates watched from the stands as El Camino’s Daniel Ramirez won his semi-final match. Tran would later wrestle Ramirez in the 98-pound finals of the El Cajon Wrestling Invitational, a re-match of last year when Ramirez won, 3-1.

“He’s the only one you didn’t get revenge against,” one of Tran’s teammates told him. “You have to win.”

Tran avenged the loss with a 10-1 victory over the El Camino senior.

Tran finished last season, 50-2, losing only to Ramirez and Santa Fe’s Ken Workman who Tran later defeated to win the state title.

“Since I never re-wrestled him there was pressure on me to defend my title,” Tran said, “but there was pressure on him because he was the only one to have a chance to beat me because he beat me before.”

Tran (19-0) jumped to a 5-0 first-period lead against Ramirez on a take down and a three-point near-fall. The Arroyo senior dominated the entire match only giving up one point on an escape with 17 seconds remaining in the match.

“I thought it would be a real close match,” Arroyo Coach Victor Vorobieff said. “It was a sweet win for Cam. He wanted it real bad. He likes to come back and beat someone he’s lost to before.”

Ramirez (9-1) has been fighting the flu and following his semi-final victory over Poway’s Tony Matteucci complained of chest pains, El Camino Coach Dave Meyer said.

“He wrestled a tough kid and Danny had a lot nervous tension going into the match,” Meyer said. “He was gunning for Cam because he had won state.”

Poway again won the 39-team tournament compiling 214 points. Poway sent five wrestlers into the finals but had no champions. Second-place Valhalla scored 160 1/2 points and crowned two champions. Ioloni (Hawaii) scored 98 points, Monte Vista had 96 1/2 and rounding out the top five was Hollister (95).