The 2018 CIF State Boys Wrestling Championships took place over the weekend on March 2-3. The CIF is a state wide championship in California for High School wrestling teams.

Following the two-day competition, the school that took the championship was Buchanan High School. This was Buchanan’s third consecutive and their fourth all time CIF State Boys Wrestling Championship.

Mauro Arejo and Mario Moreno were there representing Madera High School, and both of them are seniors. Arejo didn’t make it to day two of the championship, and his colleague did make it, but lost and could not make it to the finals.

“It was my first time here and I was really excited to be here… for Mario it was his third time here and he was closer to reaching the finals this year than the previous years,” explained Arejo.

Nicolas Lopez is a senior representing Valencia High School at the championship. Lopez explained that, Saturday morning, his school had a 126 pounder still in the competition trying to make it to the finals. Lopez had two matches on Friday, but was unable to win any of the two. He expressed his happiness to be there for the first time. “It is my first time at the championship, I felt really excited when I made it to the completion.”

Some of the CIF State Boys Wrestling Championships Final results were the following: for the 106 pounds Richard Figueroa from Selma got a 6-1 decision over Carlos Negrete from Clovis North. At 113-pounds Maximo Renteria from Buchanan took a major decision 9-1 over Aaron Nagao from Esperanza. Nic Aguilar from Gilroy got the decision 6-1 over Henry Porter from Oakdale in the 120-pounds division. In the 160-pounds division Josh Kim from Santiago got the decision 3-1 over Joel Romero from Buchanan.

The team scores for the CIF State Boys Championship was the following: Buchanan 219, Gilroy 180, Poway 171.5, Selma 168, Clovis 121.5, Clovis North 119, Oakdale 111, St. John Bosco 106, Frontier 91, Vacaville 84.