After winning its first dual meet of the season on Dec. 11, the Valencia High School wrestling team competed in the High Desert Duels in Lancaster High School on Saturday against 24 schools competing from all around California.
The Vikings took home first place in the tournament’s gold bracket after defeating Clovis East 41-40 in stunning fashion.
“It was a great day for us. We knew it was going to be tough, but we knew we had a chance,” Valencia coach Brian Peterson said.
Last season, the Vikings competed in the High Desert Duels but finished fourth in the tournament and came out this year wanting to achieve more.
This season, the Vikings were placed in pool play with Fillmore and Palmdale High School and advanced to the next stage, defeating both by scores of 67-12 and 75-6, respectively.
With the two wins in pool play, the Vikings advanced to the quarterfinals of the gold bracket where they faced Monache High School of Porterville.
The Vikings won 51-29 and advanced to the semifinals where they faced Highland, a matchup that Valencia won in dominating fashion as they scored 53 points to the Bulldogs’ 23.
“We ended up in the gold bracket last year, and we ended up losing in the semis to Highland,” Peterson said. “Then we got Highland in the semis again … they’re always tough from every weight class. They’re all always there and our boys just started pinning people, and we stomped them pretty good.”
With the team finally getting over the hump and eliminating Highland, the Vikings advanced to the finals and faced Clovis East, which Peterson believed was going to be a touch matchup.
Going into the dual, Peterson wanted to be strategic and wanted to challenge Clovis East and made some moves in the lineup.
Peterson bumped up Alejandro Navarro to the 150-pounds weight as he faced off against Benjamin Alvardo, Clovis East’s top wrestler, in hopes to gain some crucial points.
“We had a little talk before between me and the coaching staff of Clovis,” said Peterson. “And I said I wanted to get a certain matchup with one of my kids, Alejandro Navarro, and wanted him to wrestle one of their best kids. So, I asked them if we could pin them against each other, and they told me he was wrestling at 150 so I had to bump Alejandro Navarro up to wrestle that kid.”
The move to switch Navarro ended up paying off as he scored five points for the Vikings as he got a technical fall in the match.
As for the rest of the dual, it was back-and-forth between Valencia and Clovis East as the opportunity for the Vikings to win went to the matchup between freshman Dawson Payne and the Timberwolves’ Linkyn Berenda.
Before the match started, Peterson didn’t think the matchup between Payne and Berenda was going to go well as there was a noticeable difference in size.
But to his surprise, Payne scored a pin and took down Berenda.
“Out the gate, it looked like the other kid was more mature. Kid had some muscle built up on him, and Dawson just took it to him and caught him in a headlock, threw him to his back,” he said. “He got the pin and that really put us up by five, but on the scoreboard, it said six, and I didn’t even expect to win that match.”
In the final match, all Valencia needed for a win was to avoid getting pinned. Unfortunately for the Vikings, freshman Eric Lopez was pinned by Jayden Olivas in the 132-pound bout, which caused the Clovis East bench to erupt in excitement.
Following the pin, Olivas tore off his head gear and threw it onto the bench, which was deemed a penalty by the referees who stood by their call despite the protest from the Clovis East coach.
Despite the penalty, Peterson stated that Valencia would have won regardless of criteria and that the penalty tied the match.
“It says we won by one, but really we were down by one, and that penalty tied the match,” he said. “But when you look at the criteria, the first criteria are penalties, so even if we correct the score, Valencia would have won by criteria.”
With the tournament win, Peterson said the win is huge for the program as winning a 24-dual meet can bring a lot of momentum for future matches in the season.
“I think us winning a 24-team dual meet tournament, it’s huge,” he said. “We got Royal on Thursday and we’re going to be wrestling pretty much the same lineup we used this past weekend and I’m pretty confident in our ability to win the match.”
The Vikings wrestle again on Thursday at Royal High School.
