Santa Paula wrestlers take part in tournament

Cardinal wrestlers competed in the Santa Ynez wrestling tournament last week.

On the first day Santa Paula had only four losses through the first two rounds. This put them in second place as a team with 52 points behind Milikan in first place with 72 points. The next round they lost four more matches and finished the day in 5th place.  

Wrestling on Saturday the Cards started with a 12 point lead on the sixth place team Arroyo Grande. When they got to the semi finals, they had two wrestlers left in the championship round, 106 lb Emilio Diego and 182 lb Alejandro Banuelos, and six wrestlers left in the consolation round, 120 lb Robert Castillo, 138 lb Scott Black, 145 lb Robert Tamayo, 170 lb Andy Vasquez, 220 lb Pedro Rodriguez, and 285 lb Daniel Cano. 160 lb Ivan Abarca had to Injury default at end of the first day. 

Emilio Diego was the only wrestler to reach the finals, upsetting Buena’s 106 lb Nick Simpson 4-2 in the semi finals. His finals match was against Elijah Diaz from Montclair. At the end of the 1st period it was 2-1 in favor of Diaz. At the start of the 2nd, Diego chose down and escaped tying the match up 2-2. From there they battled till the end of the third period where Diaz ended up on top winning the match 8-4. “Emilio wrestled great today,” Said Coach Robert Hastie.  “Competing with these top wrestlers is making him a strong contender heading into the last half of the season.” As for the rest of the team, Santa Paula ended up with two sixth place medals won by Alejandro Banuelos and Pedro Rodriguez, and two eighth place medals for Robert Castillo and Daniel Cano. As a team they finished in 9th place.

2nd place 106   Emilio Diego

6th place 182 Alejandro Banuelos