Tokay gearing up for annual Lady Tigers Invitational

Several hundred wrestlers are expected to his the mats on Saturday at Tokay High for the fifth-annual Lady Tigers Invitational.

Tokay’s girls wrestling coach, George Bozovich, said on Thursday after the last teams were entered that he has 58 teams and 328 wrestlers signed up for the tournament.

“There’s a few weights with the top girls in the state. You’re talking the top three or four in each weight class are top 10 in the state,” Bozovich said. “There’s a lot of them. I’m pretty sure we’re the second biggest tournament in Northern California.”

For a team that has been at the forefront of the surge in popularity of girls high school wrestling, the tournament offers the wrestlers a chance to showcase what they can do against some of the top competition around.

Some of the schools, such as Del Oro and James Logan, will bring a full squad to Tokay on Saturday. Others will bring a handful of wrestlers. The result is a large, diverse field of wrestlers, many of whom have their eyes on a state medal.

Lodi, which has seen its numbers swell in recent years, will also compete at the tournament.

“They get really excited,” Bozovich said about his wrestlers. “We have to travel so much to get all the competition we can, so it gives an opportunity for family, friends, grandparents, everyone to check them out. It’s nice, because faculty will pop in. This is their first look at it and they be like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know so many girls wrestle.’ ”

It’s more than it was just a few short years ago, and Tokay has had one of the largest girls teams in the section. The Tigers won the Sac-Joaquin Section girls title for the second year in a row last winter, scoring 190.5 points in the section tournament to secondplace Del Oro’s 109. In 2016, Tokay scored 153 to win, beating Del Oro’s 133. Del Oro won in 2015, with Tokay placing second.

Del Oro will be one of the teams in town on Saturday to check out this year’s Tokay squad. And the Tigers, despite losing several top-tier wrestlers, have no intention of slowing down, with 64 girls coming out for the team and 48

of them still on the roster.

“I don’t want to say it’s unique for us, but it’s unique for other schools,” Bozovich said. “We go places, and they’re surprised when we walk in at how many wrestlers we have.”

Among those Tigers lost to graduation were Madisen Bozovich and Alexis Cavero, who are wrestling at Eastern Oregon University. Some of the top wrestlers expected to carry the

Tigers’ torch are captains Jazmin Ruiz, her younger sister Yesenia Ruiz and Madeline Evans.

“We only lose three seniors this year, then two juniors next year, and the rest are freshmen and sophomores,” George Bozovich said. “We did lose those big names last year, but as young as we are, we’re super strong still. That’s the fun part of it. That’s what keeps us coming.”

Wrestling will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday, with the finals expected to start in the late afternoon.