Conditioned Costa Mesa

Bryce Alderton

Every breath a Costa Mesa High wrestler takes will be hard earned

this season.

The Mustangs’ first-year coach Brett Shainfeld wants to build a

winning tradition at Mesa and the first step in that plan is for his

wrestlers to be in better shape than the opposition.

“We’re going to use the next one-and-a-half months to redo a lot

of the good techniques they have learned to get in better position

with better conditioning than the opponents to win matches.”

Costa Mesa (10-3) went 3-0 in last week’s Newport-Mesa District

Championships against fellow area schools Estancia, Corona del Mar

and Newport Harbor. Six Mustangs won district championships in their

respective weight classes.

Senior Matt Grubisich (140 pounds) wrestled at 130 when he won the

Pacific Coast League individual championship last season. He took

home a district championship last week.

“We’ve been wrestling live and have dueling matches,” said

Grubisich when asked about the team’s workouts. “The conditioning

helped. I think we surprised ourselves with how good we performed (at

the district meet).”

Joining Grubisich as district champions are junior Silvio Estrada

(130) along with seniors Jesse Franco (145) and Adam Donovan (152).

Donovan won the PCL championship in the 135-class last year.

Senior Carlos Ibarra will again wrestle at 103. He placed second

in the PCL at that weight last season.

Seniors Mike Simonoff (160), Tim Iller (171), and Matt Flores

(215) with juniors Gabriel Felix (119), Christian Rivero (125),

Sergio Cabrera (135) and Eric Reyes (heavyweight) along with

sophomore Joe Amburgey (189) fill out every weight class except 112,

which means less forfeits.

Rivero, Silvio and Franco all had pins for Mesa in its win against

CdM last week.

Shainfeld wrestled under CdM Coach Gary Almquist before wrestling

four years for UC Davis.

Costa Mesa finished third in the PCL last season but enters this

year in the Golden West League with Estancia.

“We’re halfway what I want to be at this point,” Shainfeld said

last week. “There’s still a lot of room for improvement.”