The Viking wrestlers redeemed themselves after an ugly loss last week with a swift 39-26 victory over the Cupertino Pioneers Tuesday night.
After losing an important match to Los Gatos High School last week by a score of 45-24, the Vikings hit the mat prepared to make up for the performance.
“When we lost to go Gatos, it took a lot out of us, we went in there with a full head of steam, we wanted to win and get the league championship but we got beat pretty bad so it was definitely important to get back to wrestling well tonight,” co-captain Nicholas Ortiz (‘12) said.
Despite having to forfeit the first match of the night, the Vikings took the early lead as a result of decision wins by Trent Marshall (‘13), Ortiz and Gary Hobach (‘13). Joey Christopherson (‘12) added a technical fall by pulling ahead of his opponent by 15 points, bringing the Viking lead to 17-6.
The Pioneers countered by beating Gunnar Felt (‘14) and Christian Lonsky (‘12) to tie the score 17-17. Cupertino then pinned Jared Swezey-Gleason (‘12) to seize the lead, 21-17. Kalen Gans (‘12) put the Vikings back on top 23-17, with a third period pin, followed by a 6-1 decision win from Erik Anderson (‘13) for three more points.
Failure to present a heavy-weight wrestler to face Spencer Drazovich (‘13) cushioned the Vikings lead after Jose Tochez (‘11) won his match 11-2 bringing the tally to a 36-21 Viking lead.
Cupertino scored only once more, beating Ahmed Awadallah (‘14) before Jordan Smith (‘13) closed out the night with a win, bringing the final score to a 39-26 victory. Smith acknowledge the necessity of his team to bounce back from their loss.
“Duran thought we didn’t compete, that we didn’t really wrestle very well [against Los Gatos],” Smith said. “He pushed us to compete and we did, that got us the win.”
“It [tonight] wasn’t important so much to win as to wrestle, because last week we did not wrestle well at all,” head
coach David Duran said. “We had some good days of practice and today was much better, against a very good wrestling team.”
In order for the Vikings to remain in contention for first place in league, Los Gatos would have to lose at least one of their final matches against Monta Vista and Cupertino. The regular season ends for the Vikings against the Homestead Mustangs on Thurday at Paly at 5:30 p.m.
