Pete Moye’
Sports Button

The Cerritos College wrestling team took second place as a team at West Hills Tournament at Cuesta College this Saturday.

Damien Gomez, who wrestles in the 125-pound weight class and Ramon Estrada of the 157-pound class, both won all four of their matches, taking first in their weight classes.

Head Coach Don Garriott was surprised by his team and how well they did in the tournament.

“Some of the better teams in the state were there so we were able to compete with some of the best teams,” Garriott said.

He adds, “It was definitely a challenge, but we also learned a lot of valuable information from it.”

Gomez opened with a win and then defeated teammate Miguel Rosales. With a record of 6-0, he will be wrestling in semi-finals.

For Estrada, in his last two matches he won 9-3, which included wins against Fresno City and Sierra Colleges.

As far as the challenges in the tournament, Estrada states, “I think my quarters match was the hardest, it was harder than my finals but it was pretty tough competition.”

133-pounder Rudy Delgado advanced to semi-finals with wins by fall and technical fall as well as a win over Fresno and Sierra for third place.

Delgado had one loss to West Hills College.

285-pounder Spencer Smith made it to the semi-finals, but lost matches and was sent into the consolation round.

“I felt like I could have put more preparation and a little more work into [the match] to have a better outcome.”

As far as improvement is concerned, Garriott states, “Mostly just that defense on takedowns and working on those mistakes.

“We keep a little notebook at the tournaments and write down when guys do something wrong,” he said.

“What we’re doing is wrong as a group because individual things we’ll work on with that individual and fix it, but it’s the bigger things that everyone is doing wrong and that’s what we’ll work on this week.”

The team will compete at the Santa Ana Tournament in Modesto at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday.