Rams claim Metro crown
Rio Rancho holds off Storm for first
The night belonged to the wrestlers from Rio Rancho — both individually and collectively.
Backed by five individual champions, the Rams on Saturday night won the Albuquerque Metro Championships at Eldorado High.
Rio Rancho scored 202 points. Cleveland (179 ½ ) and Rio Grande (136 ½ ) were second and third.
Two defending state champions, Orlando Gutierrez and Miguel Barreras, led the parade of individual winners for the Rams.
The night was filled with tight matches throughout, including Gutierrez at 152 pounds.
Early in the third period, Cleveland’s Jesse Nieto let Gutierrez up. That donated escape was the only point of the match in a 1-0 decision.
“I think he wanted to let me up so he could go for two at the end,” Gutierrez said. “I was fine with that.”
At 182 pounds, Barreras and Volcano Vista’s Joshie Griego strayed outside the circle and then onto the hardwood basketball court midway through the first period. Barreras was clearly disoriented for a couple of minutes, and was bleeding from the forehead. His head was wrapped before he continued.
He wasn’t out there much longer, pinning Griego in 1:29.
“I got pretty pissed off,” Barreras said. “We were close to the edge, and he threw me a little too far, I guess.”
Griego was one of three undefeated wrestlers when the night began.
Only one of those escaped unscathed.
La Cueva’s unbeaten Kyle Snelling beat Valley’s Jordan Velasquez at the Joe Vivian Classic two weeks ago at 160 pounds. They met again Saturday, but this time Velasquez pinned Snelling in 1:14 and let out a primal scream.
“He celebrated after he beat me, so I thought I’d celebrate, too,” Velasquez said, adding, “the only thing on my mind since the Vivian was to come back and get this win (over Snelling) at Metros.”
The last of the unbeatens, Rio Grande’s Clayton Arellano, remained that way, decisioning Volcano Vista’s Richard Govea 5-2 at 145 pounds.
One of his teammates, Isaac Lopez, authored a thrilling finish at 138. Lopez registered a takedown of Rio Rancho’s Santiago Salazar with seven seconds left in the match and won a 5-3 decision.
“I didn’t want to do anything stupid there, because I knew even if we went to overtime, my conditioning was better,” Lopez said.
Rio Rancho and Cleveland split the first four brackets.
The Rams’ Gabe Gray, a No. 4 seed, beat Volcano’s Marcus Santillanes in double overtime at 106 pounds, and Brandon Leyba, another Rio Rancho veteran, won by decision at 126.
The Storm took the 113- and 120-pound divisions. Noah Mirabal decisioned Rio Rancho’s Orion Gutierrez, and Trey Nicoley scored five late points at 120 to beat St. Pius’ Gavino Hernandez 6-1.
Grant Hermanns, a fifthseeded junior at 220, was the last of Rio Rancho’s five individual winners. Cleveland had a third champion in Shawn Nieto at 132.
Atrisco Heritage’s dominant heavyweight, James Romero, was only on the mat 26 seconds before he recorded a pin. At 170, Manzano’s Travis Decker — tied 1-1 with Cleveland’s Santiago Apodaca in the final seconds — threw Apodaca down and pinned him at 5:55.
The 14th metro champion was Del Norte’s Ramon Artiaga, who was involved in probably the craziest final of the night. Rio Rancho’s Adrian Linzy was called for a stall point with just a couple of seconds left, tying the match 3-3 and sending the 195-pound match to OT.
Finally, in the fourth overtime, Artiaga was able, barely, to ride Linzy out for 30 seconds to earn a 5-4 triumph. Linzy tried everything to get loose for the match-winning escape, but Artiaga held on, even when Linzy began jogging around the circle.
“It was pretty intense,” Artiaga said. “I was nervous. I thought I was gonna lose. At the end of the match, I was dead.”