Trojan grapplers top Corning in first dual

The Trojans and the Cardinals took to the red mats in Corning on Wednesday, as the Orland High and Corning wrestling squads faced off in the first dual meet of the season.

While the Cardinals got a pair of important wins from Coy Parker and Juan Ruiz, Orland put points on the boar by sixes, getting pins from five wrestlers and winning three matches by forfeit in their 58-22 win.

"Outstanding wrestlers for the night were Juan Ruiz and Coy Parker," said Corning coach Cort Mitchell. "Juan looked good giving up a lot of weight at heavyweight, and Coy was also up a weight class and showed some real mental toughness in beating a senior who was a varsity wrestler last year."

Mitchell added, "We want to send our condolences out to coach Perry from Orland, who lost his father this week. All of us at Corning wrestling are thinking about him."

Ruiz pinned Orland's Melky Garcia at 3:53, and after needing some injury time in the first period, Parker used a 3-point near fall in the third period to pull out am 8-5 decision over the Trojans' Tyler Embrey at 145 pounds.

The match started at 195, where Orland's Ben Howard got a quick-six by accepting a forfeit. The Cardinals also forfeited at 126 and 132, with those being accepted by Orland's Luis Ruiz and Layne Embrey, respectively.

The Cardinals' D.J. Deckman accepted a forfeit at 106.

Orland's Victor Raigoza (220) recorded the Trojans' first pin at 2:48 over Tucker Carter.

Following Ruiz's pin at 285 and the forfeit at 106, Orland's Austin James and Hugo Punzo switched orders in the original lineup after both weighed in at 113. The switch made no difference, as James (113) put Devon Hiller's shoulders down at 4:56, and Punzo (120) did the same to Corning's Jacob Tubbs at 1:10.

Following two of the Corning forfeits, the Cardinals claimed the next three matches. Josh Shults (138) won by decision over Chris Martinez, 5-0; Parker took his match and Aiden Nye scored a major decision against Lane Williams, 15-1.

Lorenzo Landeros turned the tables for Orland at 160, where he wrestled his way to a major decision over Ben Meister, 10-0. Orland's Mitchell McClough (170) followed that up with a fall over Tony Carrillo at 4:00, and fellow Trojan Cody Bundy (182) pinned Evan McFadden at 2:37.

"I know the score doesn't really show it, but I thought we wrestled pretty well," Mitchell said. "We are very young, with only one senior and two juniors in the lineup. We wrestled hard and tough and gave some good Orland kids a battle."

Assistant coaches Bob Rinehart and Matt Schumann guided the Trojans into battle in Perry's absence.

"We were a little bit worried, this time of the year it's tough to put together a lineup," said Rinehart.

He feels that the Orland squad has a number of 'sleepers' - kids who wrestled junior varsity last year, and that they did a good job of stepping up.

"Once we get our lineup where we want, I think we're a contender for the section championship."

Both squads donned the singlets for today's Doc Petersen Tournament.

CONTACT Craig Purcell at 824-1036 or cpurcell@tcnpress.com.