Half Moon Bay in line for another PAL Bay wrestling title

They all but eliminated Burlingame on Tuesday with a 48-20 win and after beating Capuchino Thursday night, 59-24, it left the Cougars as the only undefeated squad still standing.

And the chances of anyone else in the division knocking off Half Moon Bay are remote.

“I think this was, probably, the pinnacle of our competitive season, as far as league goes,” said HMB co-head coach Sam Temko. “We put our best foot forward.”

Despite the lopsided loss, Capuchino actually led the match at two different points Thursday. Both were short-lived, however.

The Mustangs took a 6-0 lead after the first match when Brendan Collondrez won by forfeit, but the advantage was quickly erased when HMB’s Sebastian Siu posted a pin at 113 late in the first round. Dimitrius Khoury took a 2-0 lead with a take down, but Siu got an escape, followed by a take down and near fall before sticking Khoury.

The craziest score came in the 120-pound match when Capuchino’s Raphael Cabitac got into position to body slam HMB’s Gabriel Garcia-Procopio early in the first round.

Garcia-Procopio had an arm around Cabitac’s neck, however, and when the two hit the mat, it was Garcia-Procopio who had control and earned the first two points of the match.

He would go on to control the rest of the match. Later in the first period he got a pair of near falls and only time expiring prevented a pin.

Leading 7-0 after the first period, Garcia-Procopio got a take down and near fall in the second period and with an early three-point near fall in the third, Garcia-Procopio posted the technical-fall victory, 17-0, to give HMB an 11-6 lead in the team score.

“It was good awareness and good agility,” Temko said of the freshman Garcia-Procopio making the best of a bad situation on the throw.

“He’s been fully committed. He’s put in the work,” Temko continued. “He won the (PAL) novice (tournament) and won a JV tournament title last weekend. He won’t be going back to JV. They can’t go varsity until they win a JV tournament.”

When Levi Terwey, a sophomore who won his first varsity match against Burlingame Tuesdsay, followed it up with a second straight pin at 128 and with the Cougars now leading 17-6, it seemed they were on their way to a lopsided victory.

But Capuchino’s Joseph Tressitte dominated the 134-pound match, leading 5-0 after the first period and 9-0 after two in a match that was delayed three times because of a bloody nose. Tressitte eventually got the pin in the third period as the Mustangs closed the gap to 17-12.

“He’s a second-year wrestler. Tough kid, very stubborn, which is good in wrestling,” said Capuchino coach Jerin Oca.

Anthony Perez won by second-round pin in the 140-pound match and just like that, Capuchino had an 18-17 lead.

But much like their 6-0 advantage, this one didn’t last long for the Mustangs as the Cougars retook the lead when the Capuchino forfeited matches 146 and 154. It was the start of five wins a row for HMB. After the forfeits, Hermes McLleland, Franco Zillo and Andres Haro all won by pins at 157, 165 and 175, respectively.

Capuchino’s final win of the night came at 190, where Jose Maldonado posted a pin late in the second round, but HMB finished with a flourish, with Jordi Sanchez and Daniel Soult closing out the match with pins at 215 and heavyweight.

“They’re always tough,” Temko said of Capuchino. “We enjoy wrestling them.”

While there are still a handful of matches left in the regular season, Oca said his squad will start to focus on PAL individual tournament Feb. 3.

“We got a lot of mistakes we need to work on,” Oca said. “We just got to get in the mindset of being ready to wrestle.”