Pin Points

Pali High Wrestlers Impress at City Regional Tournament

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

After a disappointing effort at the City Duals one week before, Palisades High wrestlers  sought to redeem themselves at the City Region 3 tournament last Saturday in Van Nuys—and did they ever.

Four Dolphins won their weight classes while eight others placed in the top five in their divisions, much to the satisfaction of Coach Mike Lawlor.  

“Today was as good as I could ask for,” Lawlor said. “Sylmar beat us badly at duals last week and three of our guys who won today beat them head-to-head in the finals. The last couple days we had really good practices and that carried over to today. I don’t think we had any champions last year at regionals. Today we had four as well as a whole bunch of  third and fourth places. This puts us in a good place for City Finals next week and a few guys will have a really good shot to win.”

Eric Smith-Williams, a tiger at 145 pounds, has been a pin machine all season and rattled off three more at regionals, the last in the first period after building up an 8-0 lead over Sylmar’s Abraham Gomez.

Next on the mat was Parsa Pourmoula, who gutted out a 4-3 decision over the Spartans’ Derek Mascorro at 152 pounds.

Freshman Ryan Woods recorded a 27-second pin in the semifinals then pinned Sylmar’s Kekoa Porter in the final at 106. At 113 pounds, Richie Rosen led 10-9 before pinning Canoga Park’s Brian Baez in the last seconds. Ari Blloshmi (126), Kyle Santelices (132), John Berrellez (138), Braeden Harris (170) and Nick Meeks (220) all took third. Michael Medina (160) and Matthew Maldonado (120) both fourth place.