The Los Lunas Tigers and Belen Eagles both secured boys wrestling district titles last weekend during their march to the state championships, which began on Thursday.
Valencia also earned an individual district championship to complement nine-state qualifiers.
Belen dominated the district 4A-5 meet, finishing with a team score of 241.5 to take the district title.
Valencia, the host school, finished in second place with a score of 107.
In total, the Eagles took home 11 individual district titles, winning in all but three weight classes.
BHS didn’t have a wrestler finish outside of the top two. Marcus Rimorin, Julian Sisneros, Josiah Pemble, Peter Duran, Diego Avila, Ely Gutierrez, Damien Wood, Coleton Gonzalez, Gabriel Tharnish, Bobby Orona and Tregg Johnson all earned district titles for their efforts in their respective weight classes.
For the second straight year, the Eagles earned an individual district title on the girls side as well, as Serena Saiz captured the title at 220 and booked her trip to the state championships.
Los Lunas won their district tournament, which was held on Friday at Capital High School in Santa Fe, with a team score of 195.5, comfortably beating second-place Santa Fe, who finished with a score of 129.
The Tigers finished with six district champions as Noah Gurule and Aaron Zamora claimed first at 106 and 113 pounds, respectively.
Jonathan Gurule and Naithan Gurule added titles at 126 and 138 while Miguel Andrade and Zach Doyle rounded out the stable of title winners at 152 and 285.
Every one of Los Lunas’ wrestlers finished in the top three in their respective weight class on the way to the team title.
For the first time, Los Lunas also had two qualifiers on the girls’ side, as Kiyah Padilla qualified at 100 pounds for her third-place finish and Julianna Lucero qualified at 126.
Lucero did not place at the district meet, which was held at Socorro High School.
Valencia finished second in district behind Belen with a team score of 107 and celebrated the individual district title of Manuel Estrada at 170 pounds.
Jaguar wrestlers had a strong showing, finishing in the top three in every weight class.
Nine VHS athletes will compete at state as Zaryah Miller, Jake Farley, Richard Madrid, Jacob Raley, Estrada, Jeremiah Garcia, Elijah Duran, Omar Estrada and Jacob Smith all punched tickets to Rio Rancho.
The state championships will be held across two days, with classes 3A and 4A competing on Thursday, May 27, at the Rio Rancho Events Center.
Class 5A and the girls will wrestle on Saturday. May 29. Tickets will be sold exclusively online at gofan.co/app/school/NMAA and will be day passes which allow for re-entry. No concessions will be sold in the arena.
The quarterfinals are scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. on both days, with session one expected to run until 3 p.m.
Championship sessions are tentatively scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m on Thursday and 6 p.m. on Saturday.
1112
April 18, 2024
