GRANITE HILLS MOVING UP BOARD ON BOYS’ SIDE

The way the Granite Hills High School boys wrestling program has exploded onto the state scene is making people wonder where they came from.

“It’s really cool we had someone from Clovis come up to us and ask if we were a new school,” said Granite Hills head coach Jesse Sheard. “They said all they could see was Granite here, and Granite here and Granite here.”

With a pair of wrestlers in the semifinals and another three alive in the consolations, the Eagles have climbed to 10th in the team competition.

Buchanan continues to lead the way with all 14 still alive, seven in the semifinals. They have 161.5 points, leading second-place Poway, who has 136.5 points with five wrestlers.

Entering this week’s state meet without its best wrestler, the Brawley girls are rising up through the field.

The San Diego Section II and Masters champion Wildcats have climbed all the way to sixth place in the team competition with 36 points, just one point shy of fifth-place Gilroy.

“It was an OK day, probably not as high as we would have liked,” said Brawley girls coach Ray Leon. “The girls wrestled much better after a tough first day; we’ve finally woken up.”

It would be easy for the

Wildcats to be a bit off, having to go to Bakersfield without defending state champion Savannah Gomez. The 137-pound champion injured her knee last summer, and was gutting it out all year. After winning the section division II title this year, it just wasn’t worth risking any more damage.

“She tried to fight through it,” explained Leon, “but at CIF it would hurt to plant it and really swelled up.”

Stepping up big for the Wildcats is sophomore 131pounder Delarie Juarez. Her first-period pin in 1:18 in the quarterfinals sends Juarez into today’s semifinals to face top-seeded Taydem Khamjoi of Cesar Chavez.

“Juarez is on a mission,” said Leon. “Right from the whistle she’s getting after it. She badly wants to place at state, and she has.”

Brawley has two other girls still alive in the consolation bracket in 121-pound freshman Lauren Zaragosa and Jaylee Cazares at 101.

Counting Juarez, San Diego is sending five girls into the semifinals. Others advancing through the quarterfinals and guaranteed a medal is Poway’s No. 2 seeded Alejandra Valdiviezo (121), RBV’s fifthseeded Kayla Edwards (126), Monte Vista No. 2seeded freshman Olivia Davis, and top-seeded Alex Perez of La Costa Canyon.