Fremont High girls wrestling team places 12th at state
Lee and Hua finish fourth for Firebirds
The future look bright for the Fremont High School girls wrestling program.
Buoyed by three underclassmen, the Firebirds gave promise of better things to come by soaring to an impressive 12th-place finish — out of 244 teams— at the CIF State’s 15th annual championships last weekend.
Fremont, which came in 32nd last year at state, came within a point and a half of finishing in the Top 10. The Firebirds were just one of three teams from the CIF Central Coast Section to wind up in the Top 15, finishing behind fifth-place Silver Creek and ahead of 15th place Gilroy.
The Fremont boys placed 75th out of 176 teams behind the efforts of a freshman and a sophomore.
“We’re very young,” Fremont coach Erik Duus said. “We only graduate one male and two female athletes this year.”
Melissa Lee, the only senior among the Fremont contingent at state, and junior Annie Hua both captured fourth place-finishes to account for all but four of the Firebird girls team’s 43.5 team points.
Lee, the tourney’s eighth seed at 101 pounds, had three consecutive victories before losing in the championship semifinals to Brianna Gonzales of Arroyo of El Monte.
Lee, who qualified for state by finishing second at the CIF-CCS finals a week earlier, bounced back to win a 2-1 decision over Hailey Ward of Turlock in the consolation bracket. However, Lee fell to Paige Morales of Central of Fresno 11-0 in the third-place match.
The Firebird senior began tournament competition by posting wins over Sophia Stagnaro of Kimball of Tracy by fall, Devyn Gomez of Kennedy of La Palma by decision (8-2) and Abbeygael Cabuag of Sobrato by technical fall (15-0).
Hua, who was the sixth seed at 143 pounds after a second-place performance at the CIF-CCS championship, began her tourney with back-to-back pins of Maritza Martinez of West of Tracy and Reyna Montenegro of Hemet. She then dropped a tough 4-0 decision to Gilroy’s Emmily Patneaud in the championship quarterfinals.
Hua earned a rematch with Patneaud in the thirdplace match by defeating Samantha Garcia of Castro Valley and Orianna Morales of Bakersfield by falls and Sadie Forman of Upland by decision (5-1).
But she had to settle for fourth place when Patneaud shut her out for the second time, 5-0.
Annabel Garcia, a junior who was coming off a CIFCCS championship in the 150 division, contributed the final four points to Fremont’s cause.
She pinned Lincoln-stockton’s Cleopatra Regan in her opening-round match, but then sustained consecutive losses to Corona’s Mariyah Casados by fall and Etiwanda’s Jodi Hartlein by decision.
Freshman Hana Duus was a surprise state qualifier for the Firebirds after taking second at the CIFCCS championships at 160 pounds, but lost her two matches to Brianna Abrica of Arroyo of San Lorenzo and Naomy Diaz of Highland
of Palmdale.
Duus, the daughter of Fremont’s coach, bumped up three weight classes this season. She won the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League title at 160 pounds and qualified for state with a stunning second-place showing at CIFCCS.
Nicola Tyburski, the team’s 137 division representative in the postseason, also was a league champion and finished fifth at the CIF-CCS championships.
The Wilcox girls was represented at State by senior Morgana Gaucher and junior Marina Mcneil-vivanco.
Gaucher, wrestling at 126, lost her opening match to Mariah Valdez of Selma by fall. Gaucher won by forfeit over Nile Jerningan of Cerritos in the consolation round, but then fell to Anya Rodriguez of Mar Vista of Imperial Beach 5-4 to end her tourney stay.
Mcneil-vivanco won her first match at 235, defeating Lynice Luna of Redwood of Visalia 6-0, then was pinned by Tatianna Herrera of tourney team champion James Logan of Union City. Mcneil-vivanco rebounded with a 1-0 decision over Isabella Calle of Downey in the second consolation round, but lost by fall to Isela Mendez of Northview of Covina.
Gaucher and Mcneil-vivanco were both third-place finishers at CIF-CCS.
In the boys competition, Fremont sophomore T.J. Takafua pinned Taven Avila of Monache of Porterville in his opening match at 285 pounds, but fell into the consolation bracket following a narrow 3-2 loss to Lucas Cook of Lincoln. He won his first consolation bout 2-1 in an tiebreaker over Aristeo Prado of Golden Valley of Merced, but was knocked from competition when he was pinned by Isa Watson of Central of Fresno in the next round.
Ramirez, a freshman wrestling at 106 for the Firebirds, lost his first match by fall to eventual champion Andre Gonzales of Poway. After pinning Hunter Ludwig of Sutter in the second consolation round, he was eliminated by Caleb Park of Calvary Chapel of Santa Ana on a technical fall (170).
Takafua claimed secondplace honors and Ramirez took a third at the CIF-CCS championships.
Santa Clara sophomore Dezi Johnson, who won the SCVAL 182-pound title and finished third at the CIFCCS championships, earned the Bruins’ boys team’s only six points at State by winning three of his five matches.
Johnson began by posting a 15-2 major decision of Jack Cost of Lowell of San Francisco, but was then pinned by Roosevelt of Los Angeles’ Thomas Orr. He responded with a 9-1 major decision over Caleb Vanbuskirk of Palm Desert of La Quinta and a 3-1 decision over Justin Tripp of Mt. Whitney of Visalia before losing his final match 4-3 to Juan Alonso of Robert F. Kennedy of Delano in the fourth round of consolation competition.
“Dezi is a joy to coach,” Santa Clara coach Andrew Calderon said. “And he hasn’t come close to reach his full potential.”