Wrestling: Frenzied Mustangs handle Newport, 56-20

Steve Virgen

COSTA MESA - Like its fervor for the upcoming season, the Costa

Mesa High wrestling team aggressively attacked visiting Newport Harbor to

score a 56-20 season-opening nonleague dual-match win Thursday.

Costa Mesa opened the match with eight straight victories, including

five pins.

“(The Mustangs) were aggressive; they went after it,” Mesa Coach Matt

Kellogg said. “This team, they all believe they can win the (Pacific

Coast League) title. There is more excitement here and more of a work

ethic.”

The excitement was displayed in each of the Mustangs’ pins, when Mesa

wrestlers knelt and pounded on the mat to encourage their teammate.

Costa Mesa junior Matt Grubisich (135 pounds) ignited the thrills when

he pinned Newport Harbor’s Bailey Bearden, a junior who also plays for

the Sailors softball team, in 1:32. Then, junior Adam Donovan (140) took

down Sailors sophomore Paul Lauders and pinned him in one minute. Another

pin followed, as Mesa senior Doug Amburgey (145) covered Newport freshman

Jeff Landa in 1:18.

Mustangs junior Jesse Franco (160) cradled Newport sophomore Brian

Rebard and pinned him in the middle of the mat in 47 seconds, and Mesa

junior Brandon Slaney recorded his second varsity win in his career with

a pin on Sailors sophomore Fabian Vasquez in 48 seconds.

“Big Slaney with the pin at 215s, that was huge,” Kellogg said.

Devant Xoai (130), a Mesa senior, also posted a pin for the Mustangs,

when he answered a 9-5 deficit in the third period and covered Newport

sophomore Kyle Codey for the fall in 4:44.

One of the more exciting matches of the night came at the 112-pound

weight class, where Newport freshman Eric Vogler inched past Mesa junior

Carlos Ibarra, 9-8, in an intense match that went down to the wire. Each

wrestler scored two points in the first period, Vogler earned his on a

takedown and Ibarra on a reversal. Vogler outscored Ibarra, 3-0, in the

second, opening with an escape and working for a takedown with 15 seconds

left.

Ibarra came back strong in the third, when he started with an escape,

scored a takedown and later came up with a reversal for a 7-5 lead. But

he was charged with locking his hands and Vogler received a point. With

50 seconds left, Vogler scored an escape and 20 seconds later he came up

big with a takedown for a 9-7 lead. Ibarra received a point with 10

seconds left after Vogler was charged for locking his hands. When the two

wrestlers were broken up and resumed action, Vogler hung on to Ibarra to

prevent an escape that would have sent the match into an extra period.

“That’s something we practice, it’s called the 10-second drill,”

Newport Coach Dominic Bulone said of Vogler’s grip on Ibarra. “(Vogler)

rose to the occasion.”

Sophomore Kid Lim (103) also earned a victory for the Sailors (0-10),

after he built a 12-0 lead in the first period and scored a two-point

near fall and a takedown for a technical fall over Mesa freshman Jorge

Alvarez.

“I liked Brandon Marshall’s effort tonight,” Bulone said of his

wrestler in the 152-pound weight class. “He was losing by nine points,

but he came up with a takedown in the end and if he didn’t that could

have gave (Mesa) four points.”

Sophomore Silvio Estrada (125) scored a technical fall for the

Mustangs after a 17-2 win over junior Nate Geier in three periods.