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Warrior grapplers third in league, Jones, Perry win tournaments

restling team finished its season third in the Avocado League.

A win over Mission Hills at home February 5 gave the Warriors a 3-2 record in league dual meets, placing Fallbrook behind La Costa Canyon’s 5-0 championship league season and Torrey Pines’ 4-1 league performance.

The Warriors were 4-2 overall in dual meets during the 2008-09 season.

“They’re really starting to buy into a lot of what we’re trying to do in that room,” said Fallbrook coach Greg Wagaman.

The February 5 meet saw Fallbrook’s seniors honored before the matches.

Ironically, three junior varsity wrestlers were called up for varsity matches that day, and two of them were victorious.

Three other varsity wrestlers competed in a higher weight class, which is permissible, and all three won.

“We’ve got to be able to do this all the time,” Wagaman said.

The final dual meet of the season had followed the Canyon Springs tournament, in which Fallbrook placed 15th out of 44 teams.

Fallbrook’s Bret Jones placed third in the 119-pound division while Jacob Albritton was third in the 135-pound class.

“We won a lot of matches all the way up to the semis,” Wagaman said. “We stayed off our backs pretty good in the matches that we lost.”

What didn’t make Wagaman happy was a knee injury to David Lopez, who had won the his two 125-pound matches before withdrawing when he was hurt in his third match.

“From that aspect Canyon Springs was not good for us at all,” Wagaman said. “He’s a guy that wrestling coaches want in their room.”

Helix High School hosted a varsity wrestling tournament February 7 while Mount Carmel High School hosted a junior varsity competition that day.

Fallbrook had one winner at each while placing fifth as a team at the junior varsity tournament and eighth at the varsity competition.

Wagaman and junior varsity coach Juan Rodas sent 11 wrestlers to Mount Carmel.

Sophomore Taylor Perry took first place in the 215-pound division. “To get first at that tournament is a pretty big deal,” Wagaman said.

Perry was fifth at the 2008 freshman tournament and had been on the varsity this season until Nick Worthing transferred from Maine and was cleared by the CIF on January 16.

Worthing placed fifth in the varsity tournament at Helix.

Perry didn’t let the “demotion” affect him mentally. “He’s really made some dramatic improvements over the past two or three weeks,” Wagaman said.

Sophomore Frankie Salazar earned second in the 135-pound division at Mount Carmel while sophomore Brandon Smith captured second in the 145-pound bracket.

Junior Michael Granata placed third in the 152-pound class.

“Pretty good future for these guys, I’m thinking,” Wagaman said.

Jones won the 119-pound class at the varsity tournament, pinning a Carlsbad opponent in the second period of the final match. Jones pinned four of his five opponents at Helix.

An illness earlier in the week kept Albritton from practicing and also kept him from making the lower weight, so he wrestled in the 140-pound bracket at Helix.

Albritton finished fourth, losing in the third-place match on points after being taken down with four seconds left to erase his one-point lead.

The Warriors compete in the CIF Division I tournament February 21 at Poway High School, and those who place high enough will wrestle in the CIF Masters tournament February 28 at Olympian High School.

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