Turlock High junior wrestler Fabian Garcia had high hopes going into the first day of the CIF State Wrestling Championships at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield on Friday. The third-time State Championship contender was looking to bring home a first-place medal in the 119-pound division this year. However, his championship dreams came to an abrupt end when he sustained an injury in the quarterfinal round, where he fell 9-2 after tweaking his knee against Gabe Brown of Poway. Garcia had won his first match 15-0, his second by pin, but was put to his back in the quarters and could not recover. He had to be helped from the arena by teammate Jose Zuniga and Coach Mike Contreras.
“It went bad when I tweaked my knee. I’m just going to try and get third now,” Garcia said.
Garcia will compete for third place today in the consolation bracket along with teammate Garrett Fortado (103) and Pitman High wrestlers Andrew Perez (135) and Gustavo Verver (189).
Fortado beat Nick Jacobo of Northview 6-2 in a pigtail (outbracket before the first round), then tech-falled Davit Hovhannisyan of San Fernando 16-1. He then won an injury default over David Ricco of Washington Union, setting up a quarterfinal showdown with Vince Moita of De Le Salle. Moita won 2-0.
Pitman’s Perez lost his first match by pin against Kyle Switzler of La Costa Canyon. He battled back with three consecutive wins in the consolation bracket, including a victory over Poway’s Will DeYoung, to stay alive and advance to the next day.
“After losing my first match, I just had a lot of motivation to fight back and keep winning. I hate to lose, and when I lost that first one I knew I had to get to work. Now I just have to win one more tomorrow and I will place. I got to live up to my brother (state placer Vince Perez). All my family is here and I want to make them proud,” Perez said on Friday.
The Pride’s 189-pounder Verver lost his pigtail 1-0, but bounced back with two pins and a 3-2 victory over Tanner Barnes of Buchanan to stay alive. He won his last match over Ryan Collins of Temecula by a score of 3-2 to advance to the second day.
Turlock’s Zuniga won a 2-1 thriller in overtime to start the tournament over Johnnie Nguyen of Andrew Hill. He then won his next two by injury default before losing his following two matches to be eliminated from the tournament.
“They wrestled excellent today,” Turlock’s Coach Contreras said on Friday. “It was sad to have two guys make the quarters and have them lose, but they are tough kids and they should come back strong. They are a little down right now but we should be ready to go tomorrow.”
— Kristina Hacker contributed to this report.