Cristo Villagrana was ready to celebrate a victory with his Atwater teammates.
However, the Falcons 154-pounder was a little too eager. Villagrana took his singlet strap off his shoulder before leaving the mat after pinning Merced's Ken Hamel in the final match of the dual meet on Tuesday night.
As a result, the Falcons were penalized one team point.
Instead of a one-point win, the two teams were tied at 38-38. Merced was awarded the victory because the first criteria of the tie-breakers gives the win to the team who was penalized least for flagrant or unsportsmanlike conduct.
"A win is a win, but I'm not thrilled about it," said Bears coach Clayton Schneider, whose team improved to 2-2 in the Central California Conference. "I don't like to win like that."
Merced appeared to be in good shape late in the match after three straight pins by Xavier Alva (126 pounds), Christian Eber (132) and Isiah Alva (138) gave the Bears a 38-27 lead with just two matches to go.
The Bears had to avoid being pinned in just one of the two matches to seal the win.
Alex Oseguera kept the Falcons' alive when he delivered a third-round pin against Cameron Barksdale in the 147-pound matchup.
Trailing 6-1, it looked like Barksdale was going to escape midway through the third round, but Oseguera caught him and put Barksdale to his back. He was able to squeeze his way to a pin with just 29 seconds left on the clock.
With the deficit cut to five points, Villagrana pinned Hamel in 1 minute, 3 seconds to bring the Falcons wrestlers and fans to their feet.
That's when the singlet strap went off and the referee caught it.
"It's a bonehead mistake," Atwater coach Nelson Medeiros said. "It's something that has happened before, but he never got caught. It's a lesson."
Villagrana promised it's a mistake he won't repeat.
"It's my bad," he said. "I apologized to my teammates. I shouldn't have done it."
The Falcons (0-4 CCC) jumped out a 21-8 lead early in the match as Kyle Thorpe (170) recorded an early pin. Atwater's JoJo Ochoa (195) then squeaked past Jesse Ayala in one of the more entertaining matchups of the night.
Ayala scored a takedown late in the third round to tie the match at 3-3, but Ochoa managed to earn an escape with 6 seconds left to get the 4-3 win.
"I can't complain with the way we wrestled," Medeiros said. "Our guys wrestled great. We had a tough couple weeks with injuries. We had to forfeit six weight classes against Golden Valley."
Merced dominated the lightweights with Meng Xiong picking up a pin in the 106-pound match. The Bears picked up four pins and forfeit win from 106 pounds through 138.
Dos Palos 55,
Los Banos 13
LOS BANOS -- The Broncos youngsters came up big as Dos Palos took home the Noah Dru Marino Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the winner of this dual meet each year.
Sophomores Dakota Spindler (122) and David Armento (128) got the Broncos (8-2) off to a fast start with wins.
Freshmen Juan Jimenez (172) and Anthony Ortega (106) and sophomore Vic Barron (184) also came through with big wins for Dos Palos.
E-Mail
Print
