On Nov. 10, the Bakersfield College wrestling team hosted the SCWA East Conference Tournament and was able to finish in second place after a slow start in the first round, falling to West Hills College (27-18). BC managed to beat Cuesta College, Victor Valley College and East L.A. College in its final three matches.
“Our next three duals, we wrestled really well,” BC coach Bill Kalivas said on his team’s performance. “We did some good things, we did some poor things. We still have some things to work on. We’re disappointed in some performances, pleased with other performances.”
Kalivas was pleased with the performance of Josh Johnson (125 pounds), who was No. 8 ranked in the state. After knocking off No. 1 ranked Matt Corea from Cuesta College, Johnson came up short against No. 2 ranked Silverio Esparza of West Hills College 10-9.
“Just some dumb mistakes he made, but it gives him some confidence on the positive things,” Kalivas said on Johnson’s performance.
Kalivas was also quick to point out the performance of Arko Petrosayan (197 pounds), who was No. 7 ranked in the state. He thought Petrosayan did a good job on adjusting his Greco Roman style wrestling.
Quinn Moore (285 pounds), who went 3-1 on the day, was very frustrated after his final dual came in a lost against No. 3 ranked Julian Zuniga, of East L.A. College.
Moore took a hard fall to the mat, and appeared to have hurt his right shoulder. The injury didn’t seem serious, as he was still able to continue the match.
“He’s just coming back after being injured, so I think he needs some more competition,” Kalivas said on Quinn’s performance.
Moore injured his knee in the Santa Ana Tournament, back on Oct. 6.
“I just think he hasn’t quite got his legs back underneath him, it’s going to take some time,” he said. “He’s got to put in some more conditioning time, you know he’s been off, when you take that time off and you’re injured, it’s hard to come back and be crisp.”
Kalivas believed the absence of Tyler Hartsfield, (who is recovering from facial reconstructive surgery, after a car wreck) really hurt the team.
“He put a big dent in our lineup,” he said. “So when you lose one of your top point getters, now we got to move people around. Moving people around in different weight classes, you know makes it difficult, we don’t have the depth that some teams have.”
BC is 7-5 in duals this year, after finishing 2-6 in last season.
“It’s an improvement and we’d like to do a little bit more improvement on it next year,” Kalivas said.“Our goal this year is to see how many people we can qualify to the state championship, and then truthfully, how many placers are we going to come away with.”
BC’s next scheduled match will be on Nov. 17 at East L.A. in the duals matchups.