The California Lady Pintos and Pintos wrestling teams competed Friday in the Tri-County Conference Tournament at Eldon High School.
Two days earlier at the Fatima quad-dual, the California boys wrestling beat Tipton 42-32, but lost two close matches to Fatima (48-33) and St. James (45-30). The girls wrestling team had a 2-1 record in the quad-dual, winning 24-12 against Fatima and 24-18 against St. James while losing 18-15 to Tipton.
The conference tournament did not start off well for California, as the Pintos struggled to get wins and find any traction. However, as the day went on, California began to put together some strong showing and wins, concluding the tournament in eighth place with a total of 37 points.
California had three wrestlers medal in the tournament: sophomore Ivy Scroggins (155 pounds), junior Alexis Anguiano (215 pounds) and senior David "DJ" Schneider (285 pounds). Each finished in third place in their weight classes with a record of 2-1.
Head coach John Heimann knew coming into the tournament the competition was going to be both fierce and unrelenting, noting what his team experienced first-hand was how to keep wrestling under pressure during tournament play.
"It was a rough start to the day. Most of the schools here in our conference are Class 2 and we're Class 1, so that makes things a little bit tougher for us. That's still no excuse to not go out and wrestle hard and I felt like we did that," Heimann said. "We're a little banged up right now, but were wrestled our tails off and we finished the day with a couple of wins that were good for us."
Heimann said although California didn't get as many medals as they wanted, his wrestlers showed a lot of grit and heart by fighting through injuries and facing difficult competition.
"Kwynnon has been dealing with a shoulder issue since football season. Hopefully he's alright and he'll be back on the mat on Monday. Patrick wrestled tough today and it was hard for him because there's a lot of tough competition in his weight class. So it's good for him to get those matches in now because they're all going to be like that for him," Heimann said. "Our girls today, Sonya and Ivy both wrestled against high-quality opponents, but Ivy came back and won third, she did well today. Alexis and DJ, our other medal winners, they wrestled well and they had a couple of tough matches today, but they are moving along well. It was good for them to medal today."
California will wrestle Saturday at the Chillicothe Tournament.