Local wrestlers tough it out at Marmonte League championships

BILL SPARKES/Acorn Newspapers TOUGH ESCAPE—Agoura’s Matt Bronstein, right, grimaces in the grips of Royal’s Dan Lemos. Moorpark’s wrestling team served notice to its competition at the Marmonte League wrestling championships.

All five of the Musketeer grapplers entered took a firstplace award during Saturday’s league tournament at Simi Valley High School.

The Musketeer quintet taking first place were Reed Dadoune (142 pounds) Eric Bodjanac (154) Esteban Torres (173) David Johnson (191) and John Martinez (heavyweight). Bodjanac received the award as the league’s most valuable upperweight (147 pounds to heavyweight) wrestler.

“I think this proves that while we may not have been the strongest dual team all year, we’ve got some of the strongest talent on our team and some of the biggest hearts,” Moorpark head coach Sean Burns said. “They really showed that. To have five guys in the finals, I was pleased and could not have asked for anything more, but to go five for five is just special.”

The Royal Highlanders placed four first-place wrestlers, Gerald Figueroa (105), Kevin Dunn (121), Dan Lemos (137) and Miguel Rivera (217).

TAKE DOWN—Royal’s Kevin Dunn tries to pin Rusty Handler of Calabasas. Dunn won the matcA pair of grapplers from the Agoura Chargers and Westlake Warriors, and one wrestler from the Calabasas Coyotes, rounded out the 14 first-place wrestlers.

Individual champions were: Devin Conroy (132) and Austin Jesse (162) of Agoura, Arian Ghaffri (114) and Geoff Pizinger (147) of Westlake, and Calabasas’ Cameron Teitelman (127).

Seniors fuel Agoura

The seniors on the Agoura team have played a major part of the team’s big turnaround from last year.

“I thought we were in the pack all the way along and we had some terrific senior leaders,” AHS head coach Dennis Ritterbush said.

“Three of the four seniors are going to go on (in college wrestling). They worked hard to bring the team around. They’ve done a good job.”

Ritterbush said the Chargers lost a couple of big matches by just one bout each.

“With one change, with one kid wrestling a little better and one a little worse (the outcome could have been different),” he said.

Conroy is one of the seniors who’s played a role in the leadership while recovering from two summers of surgery—one on each shoulder.

“I’m working as hard as I can and just trying to lead my team in the right direction,” Conroy said. “I want to take the top three at CIF, go to masters, take 3-A and go to state. That’s pretty much every wrestler’s dream.”

Conroy wants his teammates and the other league wrestlers working in and near his weight to do well also.

“That’s one of my goals, to encourage my teammates,” Conroy said. “It’s very special to me because a lot of them look up to me and they want to see what I do in a match. I try to work with them and try to teach them things. In return, I learn more myself.

“I had a rough offseason, but I came back strong, worked hard, did what my coach told me to do and I’ve been doing very well this year.”

As a student-athlete, Conroy’s goal is to wrestle at Moorpark College and transfer to Cal State Fresno.

“It all depends on my fingers,” Conroy said. “I tore a ligament in the fingers of my right hand this year and I tore ligaments in my left shoulder, I’m kind of beat up this year. I’ve just been trying to do the best I can.”

Along with Conroy, Agoura has been led by seniors Matt Bronstein (135) Ryan Canino (140) and Jerry Walhautter (215). “Those four kids worked pretty hard to turn us around from last year’s subnormal performance,” Ritterbush said.

“Agoura will have more seniors next year on than this year’s team,” Ritterbush said. “Whether we’ll finish higher next year than this year, that’s what I’m hoping. That’s the plan. I don’t know whether the seniors will buy into that, but I think they’re pretty much on board.”

Calabasas uses season

to rebuild

The Coyotes were a very young team this season and hope to use their experience as a springboard for future success.

“I’d call it a rebuilding year because we lost a lot of seniors last year,” CHS head coach Andy Falk said.

“It was a tough year. We were in almost every match we wrestled. Out of seven matches, I’d say we were in five of them,” Falk said. “So, that’s encouraging and we won one of the other ones. We wrestled tough. The kids who are young got a lot of experience. I think that’s going to set a good foundation for next year.”

The top wrestler for Calabasas this season was Teitelman, one of the 14 firstplace wrestlers Saturday.

“He is an amazing athlete, an amazing person (who’s) very talented, very dedicated, a team leader, a scholar athlete, the whole-nine-yards-kind of a Renaissance Man. He has a 4.40 grade point average,” Falk said.

Teitelman has been accepted at Stanford University and will wrestle for the Cardinal. As a high school wrestler, he went to masters last year and wants to go to state this year.

Teitelman said he’s been trying to get a lot of matches in lately. “Just wrestling, just wrestling over and over and over,” he said.

“I’ve been training really hard. I know the technique and now I’ve got to get it perfect. I’m planning to place top five in the state, at least. I’m going for first, of course.

“You wrestle on instinct. You wrestle so many matches over and over so that whatever anyone does, you don’t have to think about it,” Teitelman said. “You drill in practice—drill moves a thousand times. When this happens during a match, you don’t even have to think about it. It just happens.”

Falk said that as Teitelman prepared to wrestle Murphy in the finals Saturday, he knew it would be a grudge match. Teitelman won twice previously and Murphy had won once. So, this was the deciding match for the year.

“Cameron wasn’t feeling well when he lost, but he was feeling good (going into the match),” Falk said. “It’s probably one of the more important matches for him this year. He’s a real nice kid and an incredibly hard working kid.”

Westlake makes

progress

The Warriors placing three wrestlers in last Saturday’s finals was the major highlight of the season, as was winning at least one dual meet for the first time in five seasons.

“That’s huge because we normally only take one, and we’re taking seven kids to CIF,” WHS head coach John Cuccia said. “It’s baby steps for us, but it’s all huge.”

Westlake beat Newbury Park and Moorpark this season.

“Two league wins is huge for Westlake,” Cuccia said. “Hopefully it does everything for our program.”

Cuccia said assistant coaches Gary Murphy, Glen Gorss and Kevin Marshal have developed a system this year with a group of set moves.

“I think we were all over the boards in terms of teaching moves,” Cuccia said. “So we applied the system this year and I think that consistency in the moves has helped out a lot.”

Ghaffri, one of the 14 firstplace wrestlers Saturday, said he’s doing pretty well this year and expects to do a lot more next year.

“I work a lot on my strength,” Ghaffri said. “I’m usually much more powerful than my opponent. When I get it in my mind, I get really aggressive. That’s probably my main key right there.

“I’m working on techniques, turning them (opponents) over easier,” he said. “Sometimes I have a little difficulty pinning them. I can get them to their back, but then the pin.”

Westlake will see one of its key wrestlers, senior Jeff Pizinger (145) graduate in June. Cuccia said Pizinger has been a pleasure to coach.

“He is a scholar in school and is just an outstanding individual in general,” the coach said.

Anticipated high-impact returnees for the Warriors for next season include juniors Dan Newan and Aria Pari.

The CIF-SS Division V matches will be at Kaiser High in Fontana.