Complete Brackets
Team Scores
With a pair of individual champions and three second place finishers, the Cerritos College wrestling team came in second place at the West Hills Tournament. The Falcons compiled 127.5 team points and trailed only Fresno City College, who had 131.5 team points. The team will now compete in the Santa Ana Tournament on Saturday.
Winning an individual championship at 141 pounds was freshman Nick Camacho (Paramount HS), who was seeded #1 for the tournament. After a first round bye, he pinned Carlos Perez of Sierra College in 2:34 before a 17-1 technical fall win over Eric Salas of Rio Hondo College advanced Camacho to the semifinals. He outlasted freshman teammate Devin Daughtery (Cypress HS), 3-0 to earn the right to take on #2-seeded Adrian Marrufo of West Hills. In a tight defensive match, Camacho was able to come away with a 2-1 decision. As for Daughtery, he earned a pin in 3:38 against Robert Seronio to advance to the third place match, where he came up short in a 6-5 decision against. Mt. San Antonio College's Andrew Saucedo.
Sophomore 157-pound Aaron Negrete (Santa Ana Calvary Chapel HS) earned three wins to advance to the finals, where he was scheduled to take on sophomore teammate Kennith Kirk (Elsinore HS). The top two seeded wrestlers decided not to take on each other and Negrete was named the champion. He posted wins of 23-8 (Braydon Riley of Bakersfield) and 15-4 (Josh McMillon of Fresno City) to reach the semifinals, which resulted in a 3-1 victory over James Schmidt of Rio Hondo College. Kirk opened with a pin of Erik Pelayo-Moreno of Sacramento City College before he defeated Joseph Valdez of Mt. San Antonio College, 15-0. In the semifinals, Kirk defeated #3-seeded Bobby Miguel of Fresno City College, 6-1.
Those who reached the championship match, but came up on the losing end included sophomore Blake Vasquez (Fountain Valley HS) at 165 pounds and 197-pound Ethan Bakker (Los Alamitos HS). Vasquez was the #1 seed and posted three straight wins to advance to the finals against #6-seeded Conrad Lopez of Fresno City College. Vasquez was defeated, 3-1 in a close finals match. Unseeded Bakker opened with a pin of #7-seeded Hugo Plancarte of Skyline College before he handed #2-seeded Zavion Roberson of Bakersfield College a 6-4 defeat. In the semifinals, Bakker posted a 4-3 win over unseeded Tristan Bergovich of Shasta College before his run to the title was upended by #4-seeded Kobe Rosas of West Hills College, 7-2.
Others who placed in the top four included freshman 125-pound Messiah Owens (Gahr HS), who lost his first match before winning five in a row until a pin against #3-seeded Luis Gomez in 4:35 dropped him to fourth place. Freshman 184-pound Angel Verduzco (El Dorado HS) reached the semifinals, but lost, 5-4 to eventual champion Adrian Godinez of Bakersfield College. He rebounded with a win to reach the third place match, but was defeated, 8-3 by Logan Atchison of Chabot College.