Foothill heavyweight Posadas joins locals Hicks, Sanchez in semifinals
| Saturday, Mar 07 2009 01:49 AM
Last Updated Wednesday, Mar 25 2009 06:16 PM
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Lots of wild moves were seen Friday at the Rabobank Arena during the state wrestling championship matches which continue today.
Spectators watch the state wrestling championship action on the Rabobank Arena floor Friday.
Foothill's Angel Posadas is close to pinning Dillion Sanderson of La Sierra at the State Wrestling Championships at Rabobank Arena.
Bakersfield High's Jonah Cruz gets upside down as he competes against Jesse Stafford at the State Wrestling Championships at Rabobank Arena.
This is the CIF State Wrestling Championships, where dreams are made mere feet away from where others are crushed.
Friday night was no exception.
There was Foothill heavyweight Angel Posadas on Mat 9 on the Rabobank Arena floor, jumping up and down in disbelief. He just couldn't quite comprehend the idea that he was in the state semifinals, and that 5,985 in his hometown had watched him do it.
"I can't wrap my head around now," Posadas said.
Posadas joined two other local semifinalists, Centennial 135-pounder Seth Hicks and Ridgeview 140-pounder Javier Sanchez. All three are seniors who will wrestle in semifinal matches starting at 9:30 this morning.
But there is sadness at the state meet, too.
As Posadas finished off the state's No. 2 heavyweight, behind him, on Mat 3, Bakersfield 215-pounder Brian Schoene saw his dream of a state title end in a heartbreaking 2-0 overtime loss to Mountain View-St. Francis' Drew Meulman, completing what was a disastrous 0-for-4 quarterfinal round for the Drillers.
"What am I thinking?" BHS coach Andy Varner said. "It was tough. It was a tough round."
The Drillers sit in fifth place in the team standings with 48 points, well back of first-place Poway's 89.5. Clovis-Buchanan is second with 85.5 followed closely by defending champion Clovis' 85.
The Drillers are the only team in the top 12 without a semifinalist.
But those who fulfill their dreams always get the spotlight at the state meet -- quite literally, if they make tonight's 7:15 p.m. finals -- and that was the case with Posadas. Even if he didn't even dare to dream this big in the first place.
"I had nothing to lose today," Posadas said. "Nobody knew who I was. So what's the point in having something to lose?"
Posadas beat previously undefated Jose Lopez of Norwalk-John Glenn 3-2 in triple overtime. Neither wrestler could manage a takedown during the match, and they were tied 1-1 on an escape for each after regulation. After a scoreless sudden death overtime, each wrestler added an escape in double overtime and were tied again, 2-2.
"What happens now?" Posadas said to the referee.
The answer -- whichever wrestler scored first in the match (in this case Posadas) could choose bottom or top. If the bottom wrestler escaped in 30 seconds, he won. If he couldn't, the top wrestler won. Posadas, incredulous that it was that simple, quickly chose down.
"He said, 'If you stay down, he wins,'" Posadas said. "I said, 'Naw. Huh-uh. I can't stay down. I can't stay down.' It feels great."
Another surprise local semifinalist was Ridgeview's Sanchez, who came in unranked and didn't even make the semifinals at last weekend's Central Section meet.
Sanchez tangled with San Diego Section champion Josh Hotta in the quarterfinals. He took Hotta down twice, the final one in the third period to seal a 5-3 victory, a spot in the semis and a guaranteed top-six finish.
"I don't think I can take anybody down," Sanchez said. "But I'm close."
Sanchez is a former Bakersfield High student, but he ran into trouble there, dropped out for a short time and landed at Ridgeview. When semifinals start at 9:30 this morning, he'll be two wins away from a state championship.
"I never thought I'd make it this far, never ever," Sanchez said. "My goal was just to make it to state. It's how much work I've been putting in. It's starting to pay off."
As a former Driller goes for the gold, the current ones will be confined to the consolation round.
BHS lost all four of its quarterfinal matches, three of them in highly irritating fashion, and effectively took itself out of the race for the team championship in the span of two hours.
First was 140-pounder Jonah Cruz, ranked third in the state. He snatched San Lorenzo Valley's Cody Rodebaugh at the ankle early in the match, but as Rodebaugh sprawled, Cruz became more and more stretched out. Rodebaugh quickly spun around him and locked up a nearside cradle. Ten seconds later, Cruz was pinned.
"He got himself in a bad position and got caught," Varner said.
Bakersfield's 145-pounder, Adam Fierro, lost an 11-7 decision, and then, at 152 pounds, sophomore Bryce Hammond lost 4-0 to state No. 2 T.J. Belton of Modesto-Central Catholic. Down 2-0 late in the match, Hammond was twice called for illegal holds and penalized a point just as it looked like he had a match-changing tilt locked up.
"It's stuff we've done all year, and it's not been called," Varner said. "Then it gets called in his biggest match."
Then there was Schoene, who had twice lost to second-ranked Meulman this season and nearly had him beat on the big stage. In a scoreless match, Schoene escaped with about 10 seconds to go but was ruled out of bounds. He took Meulman down in overtime but was ruled out of bounds. He shot again, but this Meulman sprawled out and spun around for a takedown and a 2-0 victory.
"Brian fought," Varner said. "He did good. He had a couple of chances there."
Six Bakersfield wrestlers -- the four quarterfinal losers plus 130-pounder Timmy Box and 160-pounder Jose Ramirez -- will wrestle in this morning's first consolation round along with three other locals: East's Marc Collier (112) and Gonzalez (119) and Liberty's Greg Kapler at 135.
All can reach the state podium with one more win. All will be eliminated with a loss.
The round of 16 had been a great one for local wrestlers, with nine of the 14 still alive winning to move on to the quarterfinals. That list included favorites like Hicks, Cruz and Hammond and also some mild surprises -- East's Collier and Gonzalez, and then Fierro and Posadas, neither of whom qualified for state last year.
Most of those dreams died in the quarters, where elite opponents lurk at every corner. But not for Hicks, and not for two elated upstarts, Sanchez and Posadas.
"Anything can happen," Posadas said. "... I've came to the state meet and watched for three years, and now I made it and I'm in the semifinals."
