PAL Bay set to crown new wrestling champ

Half Moon Bay has long been the class of the PAL Bay, winning 16 of the division’s dual-meet titles all-time, including 11 straight. Terra Nova has nine titles, its last coming 2011-12, while South City has won two, and Menlo-Atherton rounds out the list with one.

“It’s a huge one.” Capuchino head coach Steve Matteucci said of Tuesday’s matchup with Carlmont. “Firsts are always great.”

Matteucci has two Bay Division dual-meet titles to his credit as the man in charge at South City when the Warriors went back-to-back in in 2008-09 and ’09-10. Since moving to Cap, he and Carlmont head coach Joe Patene have led parallel lives in building their respective programs.

Rebuilding has been a practical necessity since the COVID pandemic took a toll on wrestling more than any other high school sport. Patene took over at Carlmont prior to the pandemic in 2018-19, and had no more than a dozen wrestlers in the mat room on a given day that season. That number wavered even more when Central Coast Section wrestling returned in 2021-22, but has now grown to approximately 35 wrestlers this season.

Capuchino’s numbers were even more dire post-pandemic, as Matteucci took over the program in 2021-22 with just three wrestlers on roster. Now, the boys’ team consists of 36 wrestlers.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have much of a history at Cap to build on, but luckily I’m a storyteller,” Matteucci said. “There’s a lot of that same mentality in the room now. ... We’re training every day to be a champion. And if we have enough kids to fill out a lineup, we’re going to be a champion.”

While winning a PAL dual-meet championship is a point of pride, it isn’t necessarily a primary goal for competitive teams. It tends to be a byproduct of success — celebrated in the moment, sure — but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a warmup for the PAL Championships (Saturday at Woodside) and the CCS postseason (Northern Regional held Saturday, Feb. 15; Masters finals held Saturday, Feb. 22) to follow.

“It’s a point of emphasis but it’s not the final ending because we have league finals,” Patene said. “So, we don’t really want to peak Tuesday. ... We want to peak maybe at the Regional or CCS tournament.”

Case in point, two of Capuchino’s top wrestlers won’t be on the mat Tuesday. Giovanni Morett, a senior who claimed the PAL championship in the 126-pound division last season, has wrestled primarily at 132s this season, but will miss the regular-season finale due to injury. Billy Ferreira, a first-year junior who has shot his way up the depth chart, is out for the season due to injury.

So, along with senior Cameron Lowe at 190s, Capuchino will be relying on a young roster to try and take home the historic PAL Bay dual-meet championship, with sophomores Jesse Chavez (115s), Brenden Siu (126s), CJ Scerri (138s), freshman Ronin Blackner (106s), and first-year senior Ryan Blunt (heavyweights).

Matteucci, who also serves as an assistant coach with the Cap football team, said the secret to Cap’s wrestling depth has been enlisting players from the football team. Over 20 wrestlers on this years team also play football.

“It’s an easy sell because they see other kids who are doing so much better on the football field,” Matteucci said.

Patene has taken more of a grassroots approach at Carlmont, where there wasn’t a wrestling program for over 40 years until he arrived on campus in 2018-19.

While Half Moon Bay is having a down year due to struggling with filling out its varsity roster this season, Carlmont was knocking at the door last season when HMB was still on top. Patene’s varsity boys lost just one dual meet in 2023-24 to the league champs.

“We finished a strong second,” Patene said. “And this year, we were able to beat Half Moon Bay last week. So that puts us in a good pole position to win the dual meet [championship] on Tuesday.”

Carlmont is led by senior Ilan Vinogradsky, who is out to prove himself at 215s after missing the postseason last year due to a late-season injury. Rowan Sheng (115s), Brandon Osorio (128s), Amir Alilou (134s), Camilo Barberena (146s), Lance Navarro (152s); and Nicolaas Foks (159s) round out the lineup slated for Tuesday’s dual meet.

“We’re a young team, pretty young,” Patene said. “We have six seniors, but I think we have three first-year seniors. ... So, most of the team should be back to wrestling next year, and we’re going to need to replace the wrestlers we’re going to lose.”