Five Palisades High wrestlers placed in the Top 8 in last Friday and Saturday’s Downey Duals at Downey High.
Aaron Galef took seventh at 106 pounds and Lance Santelices took seventh at 138 pounds.
Matt Au (145), Kevin Rosen (152) and Marcelo Maya (169) all finished eighth in their weight classes.
After pinning his first opponnent, Galef lost to eventual runner-up Seiji Lopez of Downey by technical fall before rebounding for an 11-7 devision over Charles Barjon in the seventh-place match.
Santelices also won his first match by pin, then dropped a 12-10 decision to eventual runner-up Cristian Cardenas of Palos Verdes. Santelices defeated Valencia’s Anthony Galvez 13-5 in the seventh-place match.
Au won his first-round match 9-8, lost to eventual third-place finisher Jose Cano of Coachella Valley 5-1, decisioned Keppel’s Ruben Arauz 13-5 and lost to Isaak Juarez of John Glenn 10-5 in the seventh-place match.
Rosen needed only eight seconds to pin Adrian Kobayashi in his first match at 152 pounds, but then got pinned in the second round by eventual third-place finisher Oscar Sanchez of Artesia. Rosen then beat Adrian Enriquez of Palos Verdes by technical fall (16-1) but had to default the seventh-place match.
Maya was pinned by Alemany’s Matthew Rubio in the first round but battled back with three successive victories in the consolation bracket (two decisions and a pin) before defaulting in the seventh-place match.
Palisades finished 13th out of 42 teams overall with 66.5 points. Host Downey won with a score of 236. Two other City Section teams participated. Van Nuys (35.5) was 24th and Bell (12) finished 36th.
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