By Julius Pak
With a league record of 2-2, the wrestling team qualified 11 varsity wrestlers to the CIF Championships at Oak Hills High School this Friday and Saturday.
The 11 wrestlers qualified for CIF by placing in the top three positions in 11 different weight classes at the Mission League Finals on Feb. 5 at Chaminade High School.
The two first place titles were taken by two of the three team captains: Ben Kogan ’11 and Jake Sonnenberg ’11. Kogan captured his fourth league title in the 119-lb. class, finishing his high school wrestling career having won the league title for his weight class every year. Sonnenberg, after two previous finals appearances, won his first league title in the 135-lb. class.
Also a captain, Jordan Bryan ’11, placed second in the 130-lb. class. Elliot Storey ’12 took the other second place title for the Wolverines in the 160-lb. category.
Brandon Chen ’12 and Russell Wolfe ’12 finished third in the 140-lb and 145 lb. classes, respectively
James Wauer ’13 and Henry Schlossberg ’13 placed third in the 152-lb. and 215-lb. classes.
Jake Bracken ’14, Patrick Halkett ’14 and Mane Williams ’14 took third place in their respective classes. Bracken placed in the 125-lb. weight class, Halkett in the 103-lb. weight class, and Williams in the 171-lb. weight class.
Despite almost all of the team qualifying for CIF, the wrestling team placed fourth out of the five teams that competed at the league finals.
“In CIF, I think we’ll have a couple placers and a couple people going to Masters,” Kogan said. “I’m hoping to do really well and to place high, but we’ve never been a tournament-winning team because we are a much smaller team. I think people have been wrestling really well recently so I think a couple people will wrestle at the top of their weight class.”
“We have high hopes,” Sonnenberg said. We have a lot of younger guys. A lot of the freshmen who qualified we want to do well, and we hope they pull through. But as for the older kids we all want to get to Masters, and that’s been my goal the past couple years.”
The top five wrestlers in each weight class at the CIF Championships this weekend will qualify for the CIF Masters Tournament, which will be held at Temecula High School Feb. 25-26.
From the Masters Tournament, the top nine wrestlers in each weight class will qualify for the State Championships at Robobank Arena in Bakersfield March 4-5.
