Temecula Valley- This weekend Del Oro returned to the Battle of the Belt Tournament (Temecula Valley, CA) after a four year absence. The team had three placers and took 9th overall in a very strong field. Kainoa Acia pinned his first four opponents to set up a rematch against Matthew Porras-Diamond (Temecula Valley HS) in the finals. The two had wrestled the previous week at Doc Buchanan with Acia wining 7-3. This time, however, it was a much closer match. The score was tied 1-1 in the third period when Porras-Diamond locked in on a high C. Porras-Diamond attempted to dump Acia with about ten seconds left when Acia created some space, bounced off his butt, and immediately transitioned into a double leg takedown to score the go ahead points and win 3-1 at the buzzer. With this win in the finals Acia becomes Del Oro’s first Battle of the Belt champion (Austin Branum, Isaac Blackburn, Landon McBride, Hunter Halvorsen, and Noah Blake were all finalists).
Siraj Sidhu (108 lbs) dropped a tough semifinals match to Abram Cline (Granite Hills HS) but picked up wins in his next two matches to take third. Issac Herrera (128 lbs) went 5-3 over the weekend to pick up a 6th place finish. Eli Honsa, Evan Hilman, and Austin Wuerthner all finished one match away from placing. Also competing were Kam Rush (0-2), Jamison French (1-2), Jagger French (3-2), Logan Banks (1-2), Chino Igarashi (2-2), Raiden Catsis (0-2), Wyatt Alexander (1-2), Rocco Clark (1-2), Kevin Taylor (0-2), Soren Gammelgard (1-2), and Patrick Bailey (1-2). Follow this link to watch the matches
Del Oro Varsity competes against Rocklin this Wednesday and then will run the 40th Annual Del Oro JV Tournament on Saturday.