Young Norsemen Battle at El Dorado
El Dorado High School, December 5th-6th
Valhalla sent a very young team to El Dorado to face many top teams from the Southern Section as well as a strong Poway team. The team was missing three starters, Eli Garcia, who needs a few practices to meet the minimum requirement, Brock Wendborne and Justin Parker who were busy with CIF football championships. Expectations for this team were not high, at least from the seeds that they received. Only Keith Juengst, 103 lbs., received a seed in the brackets, the rest had to slug it out.
The Norsemen scored well in the early rounds, earning five first round pins. Valhalla advance to day two of the 32 team tournament with four wrestlers in the championship bracket with a good chance to win a medal. Keith Juengst (103), Nick Laprade (119), Charles Tonnaer (145) and Ben Pastore (275) entered day two undefeated. Senior Mike Garcia (189) was left to slug it out in the wrestle backs with Sophomores Jerrod Maguire (112) and Alan Canizoles (135).
Four Noresemen ended up on the medal stand, Juengst (2nd), Laprade (3rd), Pastore (7th) and Garcia (8th). Charles Tonnaer was the hard luck kid, losing an overtime match in the quarterfinals 12-11, he was unable to win enough matches to medal in the wrestle backs.
The Noresmen finished 13th of 32 teams and will face Santana in a dual meet next Thursday.
In other action, the Freshmen team with coaches Brian Bone and Jon Wright sent seven wrestlers to the finals at Poway's annual John Bright tournament, taking a team second to Poway. Holmes, Tasted, Hewitt, Robbins, Coats, Portofino and Wright were finalist. In addition, VHS had three 3rd place winners and four 4th placer medalists. The future is Bright.
Brackets
