The Palo Alto High School wrestling team blew out the Wilcox Chargers 58-13 Thursday night in Paly’s big gym.
Just 18 seconds into his match in the 130 pound weight class, Trent Marshall (‘13) started off for the Vikings with an impressive pin.
“It’s happened before,” Marshall said. “I thought I was going to do pretty good tonight.”
Marshall was backed by solid performances from all of his teammates. In the next match of the night, Nicholas Ortiz (‘12) pinned his opponent in the second period to give the Vikings a 12-0 lead.
Despite strong performances in their respective weight classes, Gary Hobach (‘13) and Jared Swezey-Gleason (‘12) lost off of points. In between, freshman Gunnar Felt (‘14) pinned his opponent, giving the Vikings an 18-6 edge.
From that point forward, Paly would only lose two more matches.
The Vikings also received a pleasant surprise in the heavy weight class. Although they were already winning 40-6, Spencer Drazovich (‘13), who was competing in the first dual of his wrestling career, fell behind in points 2-6.
After clawing his way back into the match, Drazovich fell once again in the point total as time began to wind down. Miraculously, Drazovich flipped his opponent over and pinned him with just two seconds to go in the period, leading to a commanding 46-6 Viking lead.
“We recruited him from football as our heavy weight,” Marshall said. “He’s been to like one week of practice.”
Joey Christopherson (‘12), Jordan Smith (‘13), Kalen Gans (‘12) and Jose Tochez (‘11) all won their matches with pins to cap off the dominating night for the Vikings.
Of the fourteen matches, the Vikings lost just four of and pinned their opponents in nine of them. The other came from a dominating performance by Erik Anderson (‘13), who won his match 15-1. As a result, a young Wilcox team was no match for the veteran wrestlers on the Paly squad.
“[Wilcox] is a well coached team, but they’re young,” Paly head coach David Duran said. “We are too, but they have a lot of first-year wrestlers.”
The Vikings are now 3-0 in league and will face the other two top contenders for league, Los Gatos next Thursday, and Cupertino on Feb. 1.
“We knew we’d be in a good spot after tonight,” Duran said.
The junior varsity wrestling squad had some strong performances, but ultimately could not overcome the large number of forfeits that came as a result of absent wrestlers in certain weight classes. Junior varsity lost, 42-21.
