California captured first place at the National High School Coaches Association Senior Nationals Wrestling Tournament in Virginia Beach over the weekend, placing 16 in the top eight with one champion.
The championship is the fifth for California with the last title coming two years ago in 2007. The winners scored 186.5 points while New York, which won the junior nationals last year, was the runnerup with 177.5 points. Michigan (170) finished third, Pennsylvania (162.5) finished fourth and New Jersey (161) was fifth.
California’s only champion was at 112 pounds, where Estevan Cabanas edged Madison Gambrell, also of California, 5-2 in the finals. California dominated the weight class as Bryden Lazaro finished third.
Californians likely expected to get a national champion at 285 pounds where two-time state champion Roger McCovey of Del Norte (Crescent City) entered the tournament as the top seed. However McCovey lost to eventual champion Eloheim Palma of North Carolina, 3-1, in the semifinals and then he lost to California teammate Jose Lopez of John Glenn (Norwalk) in the consolation round 4-2. Lopez, who lost to McCovey in the championship match at the California state finals, lost his first match of the tournament to Palma, but won seven straight matches to reach the consolation finals before falling in the third place match to Jeremy Johnson of Ohio, 4-2 in overtime.
McCovey rebounded to defeat Justin Britt of Missouri 11-1 for fifth place.
California did not have any other finalists. Other placewinners included Steven Salinas, fourth at 119 pounds; Martin Gonzalez, fifth at 125, Ryan Fillingame, sixth at 125, Scott Sakaguchi, third at 145, Jordan Hart, fifth at 145, Matthew Melendrez, eighth at 145, Chris Urquizo, fourth at 152, Tigran Adzhemyan, fifth at 152, Ryan Loder, fourth at 189, Nick Pica, third at 215, and Josh Wood, seventh at 215.
Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia each had two champions. Brenan Lyon won the 103-pound class for the Wolverine State with a 10-8 victory over Brian Hauser of Ohio. Meanwhile Daniel Yates topped John Nicholson of Iowa at 160 pounds.
New Jersey’s Ed Ruth was the only national No. 1 ranked wrestler to win at the senior nationals. He won the 171-pound weight class with a 9-3 victory over Ethan Lofthouse of Utah. Sean Boyle was the other New Jersey champ, defeating Tyler Cox of Wyoming 9-2 in the 119-pound final.
Virginia had Michael Garofalo win the 125-pound division and Derrick Borlie win the 189-pound class. Garofalo defeated Cashe Quiroga of Indiana 16-10 while Borlie topped Kevin Barrett of Nebraska by a pin in the second round.
Other individual champions included Dale Shull of Colorado at 130 pounds, C.J. Napier of Kansas at 135 pounds, Kyle Dake of New York at 140, Joey Napoli of Pennsylvania at 145, Cody Compton of Missouri at 152, and Tony Nelson of Minnesota at 215.
Dake was expected to meet Ohio’s four-time state champion Collin Palmer in the finals. However Palmer did not attend the meet.
Pennsylvania missed out on making a clean sweep of all four grade levels at the national championships as it won the freshman, sophomore and junior national tournaments, which were also held at Virginia Beach earlier in the week.
Pennsylvania scored 204.5 points to win the freshman level while New York was second with 185 points and New Jersey was third with 165. Heavyweight Josh Duplin was the only champion for Pennsylvania while New York had Chris Nevinger at 145 and Jimmy Kloc at 140.
The Keystone State ran away from the competition in the sophomore tournament, scoring 277.5 points. New York was second with 206.5 and New Jersey was third at 169.5. Pennsylvania champs included Dave Makara at 125, Nathaniel Brown at 171 and Caleb Baker at 285 pounds.
The competition was a little tighter at the junior level where Pennsylvania finished with 259 points. New Jersey was next with 221 and New York finished third with 218. New Jersey had the most champions with three, including Vinny Fava at 135, Bill George at 189 and Nick Visicaro at 160.
