Sunday, February 12, 2012

Friday, Feb. 26, 2010

Los Banos' Hartman cruises to divisional wrestling title

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STOCKTON -- Greg Hartman can tell early on if he's going to have a good day.

The Los Baños High senior had that feeling on Saturday as he warmed up for the semifinals of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I South tournament at Lincoln High.

"When I'm going good, I can tell early when I'm (warming up)," Hartman said. "I can tell I'm going to have a good tournament. Everyone has their good and bad days. I could just tell it was going to be a very good day.

"I couldn't tell you why I felt that way, but it feels pretty awesome."

Awesome summed up Hartman's performance.

He wrapped up his second straight divisional championship by pinning Pitman's John England, and then needed less than 3 minutes to record a 17-2 victory over Enoch's Wayne Green in the 145-pound finals.

Hartman felt so good he never peaked at the brackets or scouted his opponents.

"Honestly, I didn't even know what school he was from," said Hartman of Green. "The last two days I haven't looked at the brackets. I just felt I was on top of my game.

"That will change next week at Masters. I'll do some scouting."

Hartman never let Green breathe in the finals. Leading up to the finals, Hartman registered three pins in his first three matches.

He recorded three takedowns on his way to a 12-2 lead after the first round. A quick reversal and three back points ended the match early in the second.

"I like the way I'm wrestling," Hartman said. "I came away with first place, which will help me get a great seed next week and a good opponent. It's all about the big picture and getting back to state."

Los Baños' Kendal Klette fell just short in his rematch of last week's CCC 103-pound final with Garrett Fortado of Turlock.

Klette scored two nearfall points late in the match, but it wasn't enough in a 6-5 defeat.

Klette took second place after beating Daniel Vargara of St. Mary's High in the first round, Francisco Lopez of Lincoln Stockton in the second round and pinning Chris Kreifels of Downey in the semifinals.

LB led the way with seven wrestlers advancing to today's Masters tournament at the Stockton Arena.

Aside from Hartman and Klette, Jorgie Munoz at 119 pounds will be moving on to Masters. Munoz finished in third place and did so after losing in the semifinals against Pitman's Tyler Klinkhammer.

On Friday, Munoz beat Brandon Baccam of Cesar Chavez and Philip Kilmer of Edison Stockton to get to the semifinals.

Munoz beat Alfonso Cintora of Merced in the third-place match.

Edduardo Madriz (130) punched his ticket to the Masters on Friday after going 2-0 and getting to the semifinals. Madriz finished in third place after winning the medal match over Daniel Mora of Tracy West.

Arnold Lopez (171) ended up in sixth place after winning his match over Dominic Williams of West of Tracy.

Lopez then lost against Joey Allen of Golden Valley High of Merced in the consolation semifinals.

Marco Dicochea (189) pinned Christian Garcia of Modesto High to punch his ticket to Masters.

Dicochea ended up taking fifth place after being eliminated by Joseph Golden of St. Mary's High of Stockton.

Andres Quintero (285) finished in fourth place after losing in the semifinals against Kris Merril of West High of Tracy. Chad Fraga of Tracy High beat Quintero in the third-place matchup.

Manuel LeFevre (160) was eliminated one win shy of qualifying for the Masters. Tokay senior Nick Parisis defeated LeFevre after Mike Podesto of Lodi High put him into the consolation bracket.

Bob Escobedo (215) was eliminated after his first match on Saturday. He was also win win away from qualifying for Masters.

James Robledo, Manuel Silva and Jimmy Felix were all eliminated after the first day of the divisional tournament.

LB's seven wrestlers will begin the Masters tournament today at 9 a.m. at the Stockton Arena.

John-Joel Griffiths of the Los Baños Enterprise and Shawn Jansen of the Merced Sun-Star both contributed to this report.