Armstrong adds strength

Gary Almquist at first wants you to believe a Ohio state champion showed up one day last month at Corona del Mar High and said, “I want to wrestle.”

The story is easy to buy until you talk to the actual wrestler.

Tucker Armstrong is the first to tell you his future in the sport he has competed in since age 5 almost took a drastic turn the first time he entered the Sea Kings’ wrestling room.

“Not to be mean about it, I was kind of shocked,” Armstrong said. “I told my dad, ‘I don’t know if I could wrestle right now. I don’t know if I could do this.’ I just thought, ‘I put too much time in this sport and I’m just not going to get better doing this [here].’ ”

No one in the room posed a problem. That was the problem the junior faced.

When Armstrong said he moved to the area in December to live with his father, Dave, he was starting all over. Dave had already been here for a few months, working for an oil company.

Armstrong said he left behind a lot in Ohio.

His mother, Karen, is trying to sell the family house. His former nationally ranked wrestling partners have found others more than capable to push them on the mat. His former high school, Graham in St. Paris, Ohio, continues to be ranked among the top programs in the country by Amateur Wrestling News.

Armstrong is going through what they call a real-life reversal.

The transition from helping his school contend for state and national team titles to none at CdM pinned Armstrong into a corner. His father gave him permission to stop wrestling.

Who was Armstrong wrestling for, himself, his family, the team? He understood not competing at Graham this season and then transferring to CdM this late in the season might isolate him.

For advice, he turned to his mother.

“She just said, ‘Just try it. You’re already out there, you might as well,’ ” said Armstrong, knowing he had no more teammates to count on to score points for the team in the postseason.

Wrestling, after all, is an individual sport.

Armstrong is now a one-man show on the road. The 130-pounder was one of eight Sea Kings who qualified for the postseason out of the Pacific Coast League championships Saturday.

If you look at the number of qualifiers, you might think CdM advanced as a team. Not even close. CdM placed third at the finals and missed out on the league’s second guaranteed spot in the CIF Southern Section Division I team tournament by 55.5 points.

All eight Sea Kings will be at the CIF Southern Section Coastal Division individual tournament at Whittier High on Feb. 20-21.

Armstrong can’t wait to bang around and earn one of the five berths to the Masters tournament, the precursor to state.

In six matches so far, he’s undefeated. Two of those wins led to Armstrong becoming CdM’s lone league champion. In the final, he beat Laguna Hills’ Ian Helstein by technical fall, 21-6.

When Armstrong left Ohio, he expected to win a league title. But not at CdM.

Wrestling for the Sea Kings wasn’t Armstrong’s first choice.

At the start of the new year, Armstrong said his father tried to enroll him at Newport Harbor, CdM’s Back Bay rival. All Armstrong said he knew of Newport Harbor before meeting its wrestling team at a Jan. 3 tournament in Ontario was what he saw on MTV.

The reality show “Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County” is filled with a lot of drama and fancy cars.

“You see Porches and Lamborghinis,” Armstrong said. “In Ohio, you’ll see [them] every once in awhile, but kids are driving them out here.

“Out there [in Ohio], its kind of normal living, normal people. They’re not as rich. There [are] people with like no teeth out there, just nice people.”

Reality sure set in once he got to his new home near the Pacific Ocean.

Reality hit hard when he tried to register at Newport Harbor.

“We were getting all the paperwork done. The [vice] principal came in and said we couldn’t [enroll], so we had to come here,” said Armstrong, adding that he learned he barely lived in CdM’s zone. “I was like, ‘[Darn!]’ I kind of knew [Newport Harbor’s wrestlers] and I felt kind of bad that I ended up at [CdM].”

Dominic Bulone, the coach at Newport Harbor, said he wished Armstrong the best.

Bulone coached the lone Newport-Mesa Unified School District wrestler to go to state and place last season in Josh George, who was eighth at 140 pounds.

“Things like this don’t generally materialize, or come to fruition,” said Bulone, who first learned of the possibility of Armstrong coming to the area in December. “It did, but it turned out for Gary. I was excited for Gary.”

Almquist, in his 13th season, said he felt like he won the lottery.

Armstrong was his winning ticket, his admission to state, his ride to being a part of a state champion.

You have to go way back in the CdM school record book to find the Sea Kings’ last and only wrestling state champion. Almquist knows the year, 1976, and name, Spyro Kemble, well.

Kemble has contacted Almquist in the past. About six years ago, Almquist made the mistake of touting one of his wrestlers for recording 35 wins to a local sportswriter. Almquist said it was the most in CdM history.

“I got a letter from [Kemble] the next day, saying, ‘I had 49 wins, I had this many takedowns,’ ” said Almquist, who still has the letter listing all of Kemble’s school achievements.

He’s been waiting for a wrestler to break all of Kemble’s records.

At a recent league dual meet, Almquist said Kemble made a rare appearance. Almquist sought him out and the two exchanged words.

“I said, ‘We got a guy that’s going to break your record,’” Almquist said. “[Armstrong] wasn’t there, but [Kemble] had heard.”

From as far as the East Coast, word spread of Armstrong coming to wrestle in an area of Orange County where you’re more likely to find someone in a wetsuit than a singlet at the local grocery store.

As early as November, fans caught wind of Armstrong’s departure from Graham. Next thing Armstrong finds out is their opinions on his move.

On Internet wrestling forums in Ohio, this was huge news. How could the program that won the 2007 Walsh Jesuit Ironman national championship in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, lose its 125-pound Division II state champ of a year ago?

Wrestling in the Midwest is as popular as the avocado on the West Coast. When you cut weight back there, you’re not losing weight to maintain your modeling look.

One fan on a wrestling website had him going to Colorado, one of five states Armstrong said he’s lived in due to his father being in the military.

Another one had Armstrong retiring from high school wrestling to pursue a mixed martial arts career. Must have been the fact that Tito Ortiz is from nearby Huntington Beach.

One questioned Armstrong’s stability, bouncing to his third high school in three years.

Another accused Armstrong of failing to make the varsity team at Graham, forcing him to move out of state because if he transferred to another school in Ohio, he would lose a year of varsity eligibility.

If this was the case, what 16-year-old moves 2,240 miles to not wrestle?

Armstrong said he was on the brink of calling it quits when he first met Almquist.

The wrestler, who won the 125-pound national title at the Super 32 Challenge in Greensboro, N.C. in November, was about to ride into the California sunset on a beach cruiser.

Armstrong actually bought a beach cruiser once he made the move. The bike is his daily ride to school and back home, a five-mile round trip.

There was still one question Armstrong had for Almquist, who reminded him of a WWE wrestler because Almquist’s hair is longer than your typical high school coach’s hairdo.

Can anyone challenge Armstrong in the room?

CdM’s top wrestler at the time was junior Danny Busch. He was just happy Armstrong wasn’t planning on wrestling at his weight class, 140 pounds.

“When he came in and wrestled me, he tore me up,” said Busch, who placed third at the league finals and advanced to the section’s individual tournament. “I’m like, ‘Ugh, I’m not the stud on the team anymore.’ ”

This proved to be an issue for Armstrong.

Back at Graham, there was David Taylor, USA Wrestling Magazine’s top-ranked 135-pounder in the country, and Zach Neibert, ranked No. 5 at 125 pounds, to work out with daily.

“It was tough,” Armstrong said of adjusting. “The kids just didn’t know really what they were doing. I didn’t know if I had someone to push me.

“Newport was a little bit tougher.”

Armstrong said he never worked out with the Sailors, just watched them wrestle.

If Armstrong felt CdM’s room was inferior, Almquist pointed him to the door.

“I told him, ‘Go to Irvine, where you have workout partners,’ ” Almquist said.

Armstrong stayed put. Almquist had the perfect partner for Armstrong.

Almquist introduced him to a 29-year-old portfolio manager named Dan Hayman, who’s just trying to stay in shape.

“It’s fun to work out with him,” said Hayman, who said he wrestled at 133 pounds while at Lehigh University for well-regarded coach Greg Strobel.

While Hayman failed to reach the CIF State championships while at Northgate High in Walnut Creek, he believes in Armstrong.

Armstrong has showed Hayman his skills on the mat. Hayman has returned the favor.

“Tucker doesn’t get taken down very often,” Almquist said. “Coach Hayman can take him down.”

Ten days after going to class at CdM, Almquist said Armstrong earned the required time to be eligible to compete for the Sea Kings.

In his debut at the Raul Huerta Memorial Tournament at Canyon Springs High in Moreno Valley on Jan. 30-31, Armstrong wrestled at 135 pounds, instead of 130.

He packed more than weight. Armstrong went 4-0 and knocked off Five Counties Invitational runner-up Conrad Snell of Poway in the final, 5-2.

“I was real nervous. I just didn’t feel like myself,” said Armstrong, unaware Snell was then ranked No. 3 in the state by TheCaliforniaWrestler.com.

Armstrong didn’t want to know because he doesn’t “like to have people tell” him such information before wrestling.

“I felt like everyone was kind of like watching me and trying to figure out who I was,” said Armstrong, who was born in Riverside and is far from the tough guy CdM teammates and coaches expected from someone who spent six years in scrappy, blue-collar Ohio. “I was just scared, honestly. I didn’t know how I was going to wrestle.”

The butterflies are back and Almquist is lucky a state champion from Ohio is wrestling for him.

He can call Armstrong’s father on his work cellphone and thank him. Dave’s area code is 661, which also happens to be the area code in Bakersfield, home to next month’s state finals.

Almquist may want to wait until Armstrong answers the call in Bakersfield.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.