Wrestling: Cerritos places ninth at Embry Riddle Tournament

Falcons finish ninth at the Mile High Open in Arizona
Falcons finish ninth at the Mile High Open in Arizona

Competing in the Mile High Open at Embry Riddle (AZ) Tournament, the Cerritos College wrestling team finished in ninth place out of 22 schools. The Falcons have one more tournament before they compete in the Southern California Prelims. The team will wrestle in the East Los Angeles Brawl. In the tournament, which was held at Embry Riddle (AZ) University, Cerritos finished with 52.5 team points and were one of two California community colleges in the tournament. The majority of the schools were four-year universities.

The day before the tournament, Cerritos went up against three colleges in dual meet matches and dropped decisions to Embry Riddle (46-9), Snow (UT) College (41-10) and also took on Simpson (CA) University.

Both entries at 157 pounds went 3-2 at the tournament, with sophomore Caoilte Drury (Westminster HS) advancing to the semifinals before dropping his last two matches. After a first round bye, Drury recorded a 19-0 technical fall over Jonathan Nishikawa of Oak Squad and then pinned Davion Barnes of Arizona Christian University in :29 seconds. In his semifinal match, Drury was pinned by eventual champion Ben Miller of Doane University before a loss to top seed Evan Kilgore (New Mexico High) ended his day. As for fresman Noah Zuniga (Trabuco Hills HS), he won his first round match, 14-6 over Christian Gallardo of Arizona Christian before dropping a 17-7 score to Kilgore. In the consolation round, Zuniga received a win by disqualification and then handed Gallardo a 7-3 loss. Zuniga was then pinned in his next match, ending his day.

Also winning three matches at the tournament was 149-pound freshman Jasper Centeno (St. John Bosco HS). A first round loss sent him to the consolation round where he pinned Malcolm Williams in 2:29, Jaden Taylor of Simpson College in 2:17 and then Eric Smith-Williams of Oak Squad in 4:31. A loss by pin to Mykey Ramos of Arizona State University capped off the day for Centeno.