Sea Kings maintain grasp on district

Rick Devereux

The Corona del Mar High wrestling program is turning out to be fairly

rude hosts.

For the second straight year, the host Sea Kings won the district

championship, this time defeating visiting Costa Mesa, 60-12,

Estancia, 40-3, and Newport Harbor, 44-33, Thursday.

“Our goal was to win all three meets,” Coach Gary Almquist said.

“But I told our guys that I’m 50-50 about how we performed. We had

some young guys step up. It took guts and courage for freshmen Taylor

Alston (119-pound weight class) and Jake Schawartz (171) to not only step up but to win.”

Alston pinned his Newport opponent in the secnd round and

Schawartz won his Back Bay match to help lift the Sea Kings to a

44-33 win over the Sailors in the final and deciding meet.

But the meet ultimately came down to the last match of the day in

the 275-pound division. If Newport was able to pin CdM’s Robby

Richey, the Sailors would have won the meet by one point. Richey

pinned his opponent in the first round to finish undefeated in the

meet. It was his second first-round pin of the meet. The third

victory was by forfeit.

“I was a little [nervous heading into the final match],” Richey

said. “Coach told me to wrestle smart and don’t let [a Newport

wrestler] pin me. Every time [the Newport wrestler] tried to tie me

up, I’d get away from him. I had to make sure I wrestled my match and

didn’t let him dictate what was happening.”

Richey now improves to 15-2 on the year with 13 pins. He has won

12 straight matches.

CdM teammates joining Richey as district champions are Taylor

Alston (119), Dean Mohemahi (145), Jon Dean (152) and Ian Hogan

(160).

Estancia’s lone loss of the meet was to CdM, defeating Costa Mesa,

54-15, and Newport, 42-34.

“We exceeded my expectations,” Coach Brian Burgess said. “Overall,

I’m extremely proud with how we have improved. We did better than

last year and we’re steadily improving everyday.”

Danny Alderete (130), J.C. Kurzen (135), Caley Carr (140), Alex

Sotomayor (171) and Chris Guzman (215) were district champions in

their respective weight classes for the Eagles.

Newport Harbor defeated Costa Mesa, 72-24, and had Zane O’Bourke

(103) and Joshua George (125) finish undefeated.

“We came into this meet trying to put our best foot forward and

get as many district champions as we could,” Coach Dominic Bulone

said. “We’ve been working on certain moves in practice and really

wanted to see them use them today. Some guys did OK with it.”

Bulone said the team will have to run from Newport Harbor High to

CdM because they lost to the Sea Kings, a tradition some of the

players were dreading as Richey closed out the meet.

“That shows that one match can make a difference,” Bulone told his

team after the match. “And not just [the 275-pound match]. A point

here and a point there could have been the difference.”

Costa Mesa only had five varsity wrestlers, so winning meets was

not the goal.

“We wanted to win as many individual matches as we could,” Coach

Paul Serico said. “We went 9-6 on varsity and 8-4 in frosh/soph.”

Garrett Williams (112) and Joe Amburgey (189) were champions of

their respective weight classes for the Mustangs.