HIGH SCHOOLS:

At this point in his undefeated senior year, Newport Harbor High 140-pounder Josh George called his performance at the 28th annual Estancia New Year’s Classic his best.

Four wins, two by falls and two by technical falls, hard to argue with that. Sure his outings before the New Year at the John Glenn Tournament in Norwalk and the Andrew Pena Tournament in Irvine were impressive, earning him the Most Valuable Wrestler of the middle weights (130-160) at John Glenn.

But George is 26-0 going into this week and this isn’t just any week. He’ll be preparing for the Five Counties Invitational at Fountain Valley on Jan. 18-19, making him the first Newport Harbor wrestler under Coach Dominic Bulone’s nine years to be invited to the prestigious event.

“That will be his first real test [against] state-caliber [opponents],” Bulone said. “This year I talked to the [Fountain Valley] coach [Brad Woodbury during the New Year’s Classic]. I said, ‘I want to get my guy in.’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ It’s like the [Arcadia] tournament for cross country.

“For Josh it’s going to be a really good indicator of how he’ll do at state.”

If you ask George of his expectations, they’re through the roof.

“I’m going out there to win it,” said George, sounding confident for someone who has never reached state before.

Since George is receiving a lot of recognition these days for his wrestling prowess, he’s learning how to handle it. In his first two tournaments, the senior said he was calmer than at Estancia’s two-day event.

“I was hurting,” he said. “I felt like I was about to die. [It] might have been [because of wrestling after] the holidays.”

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?Unlike most other wrestlers with their school affiliations on their singlet, Costa Mesa 189-pounder Cody De La Mater has been wearing a black singlet with the only logo showing is the maker of the singlet, Asics.

De La Mater doesn’t mind even though he’s a senior.

“We have some other ones that are green and black, but we have to earn those,” De La Mater said. “Last year we got them and I earned mine by going to CIF. Coach [Jesse Franco] said I have to earn it again.

“My freshman year I was looking at everybody else and I was like, ‘Oh! [This team] has got like this fin and like a shark and like a mermaid. I don’t care about that stuff now.”

De La Mater just wants to win. During the New Year’s Classic, where he improved to 9-2, his nose bled throughout the third-and fourth-place match, forcing Franco to stick tissue up one of his nostrils to control the bleeding.

“Blood doesn’t bother me. It’s just the refs hate it,” said De La Mater, who during the match had to walk over to the water fountain to clean up. “I think that you should wrestle through it, like an obstacle. It feels awkward, but I’ve had bloody noses my whole life.”

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?Gary Almquist has seen a lot during his 12 years as wrestling coach at Corona del Mar. But never had he experienced his team getting shut out in a team dual meet.

It happened for the first time.

After opening the Pacific Coast League with a 37-30 victory against Beckman, the Sea Kings lost to Laguna Hills, 74-0, Thursday. The last time CdM had seen the Hawks was at the Mann Holiday Class at Cal State Fullerton, where Laguna Hills was on its way to claiming its second tournament championship in two weeks.

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?This year’s Battle of the Bay boys’ basketball game was moved from the start of the season to during league play.

The decision to Newport Harbor Coach Larry Hirst made sense, as he said about 1,700 fans attended the game in which CdM won, 47-32, on the road Saturday night.

“I really loved the whole environment, a packed house, a Saturday night. It was a good-old fashion backyard brawl,” said Hirst in his 13th year at Newport Harbor. “You always miss the days when we were in the same league together and we could’ve played twice and then we could’ve had a rematch back at their place.

“We decided to change [the date] even though we’re in the middle of league because of this reason. We just felt like it was kind of cheating the student body because they always had football kids missing, I had football kids missing [at the start of the season]. It just seemed like you really truly weren’t playing with full squads.”

CdM Coach Ryan Schachter agreed.

“Unbelievable,” Schachter described the experience. “This was great. Last year wasn’t so big. I loved this.”

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?Laughter broke out before the Corona del Mar High boys’ basketball team was introduced at home in a Pacific Coast League showdown with Laguna Hills Friday.

The public address announcer called the Sea Kings the “Sea Queens.” He corrected himself seconds later. Maybe the slip had something to do with the CdM girls’ basketball team playing the Hawks at home in the early game that day.

The boys went on to win, 68-53, helping CdM beat the team it lost to last year and had to share the league title with because of the loss. CdM is 13-5 and 2-0 in league heading into the week.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA is a staff writer. He can be reached at (714) 966-4612 or david.carrillo@latimes.com.