Freelance
TC Varsity
ASH FRIEDERICH
sports@tucsoncitizen.com
With the high school wrestling season winding down, Wednesday’s four-team meet at Sahuaro High gave teams one of their last chances to prepare for region and state tournaments.
Sunnyside, the defending Class 5A Divison II champion, set the tone early in its match against Cienega, a squad with high hopes in this year’s 4A-I tournament.
Sunnyside’s Diego Bravo pinned Cienega’s Cody York in 42 seconds in the first matchup of the two schools, leading to a 54-12 Sunnyside win.
“We knew that was going to be a tough one,” Sunnyside coach Bob DeBerry said of the Cienega matchup. “That was a good win for us. Cienega is having a good year and it was going to lead up to a tough duel.”
With the heavyweights, the roles were reversed. Jordan Christenson, Cienega’s defending 4A Kino Region champion, gave his team momentum when he took a 7-2 decision over Ernesto Alvarez.
“We knew that Sunnyside was going to be tough,” Christenson said. “We worked really hard in practice and it paid off. I wanted to get everyone else’s confidence up and I wanted to go 100 miles per hour.”
By the time Cienega picked up its last points in the 135-weight class – Brett Gudeman won a 9-7 decision over Simon Villa – Sunnyside had built a 30-9 team lead.
“We still have a ways to go,” Cienega coach Marty Niblo said. “Jordan is a big kid and is learning how to use his body. We were working on the reverse headlock with him in practice and he did it really well and got the team on a roll.”
Host Sahuaro defeated Sahuarita 46-30. Dylan Blondeaux won his 189-pound match with a pin 27 seconds in versus Elias Coronado.
J.P. Reyes took a 15-3 major decision over Sahuarita’s Sean Sinohui in the 135-pound class to put his team up 34-18.