With one individual weight champion, one second place and two third place finishers, the Cerritos College wrestling team finished in fifth place at the Santa Ana Tournament on Saturday. The Falcons finished with 79.5 team points, with the host Dons (third place) and Mt. San Antonio College (fourth place) from the Southwest Conference finishing ahead of the team. Cerritos will travel to Mt. SAC on Wednesday for a 7:00 p.m. match in their conference opener.

Leading the team at the Santa Ana Tournament was freshman 125-pound Dustin Kirk (Elsinore HS), who defeated four opponents to win the championship. After a bye in the first round, Kirk shut out Albert Landeros (Sacramento City College), 7-0 and followed that with a 12-2 victory over Seth Hood of Fresno City College. In the semi-finals, Kirk held off Mt. San Antonio's Christian Betancourt before pulling out a 13-10 victory over Arnulfo Olea of Fresno City in the championships.

Freshman Keanu Tom (Los Alamitos HS), who won the 157-pound championship at the West Hills Tournament last weekend, moved up to 149 pounds and advanced to the championship match. Although he suffered a 9-2 loss to Fresno City's Martine Sandoval, Tom picked up a technical fall in his opening match and was able to record a pair of close wins to reach the finals. He defeated Joseph Ontiveros of Fresno City, 5-4 and Jr. Luke of Palomar, 6-3 to advance to the championship match. Sophomore Michael Behnke (Arlington HS) was also defeated by Luke in the consolation round, a 14-4 decision.

At 174 pounds, freshman Maxwell Kumashiro (Los Alamitos HS) won his first two pair of matches to reach the semi-finals, but came up short in a 12-10 match against eventual champion Brody Goens of Mt. San Antonio. Kumashiro bounced back and won his next two matches, including a 9-4 decision against Dillan Harroun of Bakersfield College to claim third place. Freshman 184-pound Jeremiah Gerl (Calvary Chapel HS) mirrored the same day as Kumashiro with two wins to advance to the semi-finals. He was pinned by eventual champion Alex Chambers of Sacramento City College, which dropped Gerl into the consolation round. After a win put him in the third place match, Gerl pinned Nathan Rodrigues of Mt. SAC in 6:57 to claim third place.