Wrestling is the ultimate “mano e mano” sport. One ring, one referee, two wrestlers equally matched in weight, no special equipment except the desire of heart, physical strength, skills and ability.

14 wrestlers make up a complete team. The Fillmore Flashes roster is filled with holes in the lineup which is a huge disadvantage with wrestling team tournaments or when making a run at the League Title. That does not discourage the Flashes from making their presence known on the mat. On 1/14/11 and 1/15/11 The Flashes traveled to Palmdale for the always tough Highland 10 Way Tournament. The following schools competed at the 2011 Highland 10 Way; Highland, Palmdale, Antelope Valley, Knight, Eastside, Chatsworth, Upland, Agoura, Lancaster and Fillmore.

Competing for the Flashes were Francisco Enriqez at 103 pounds, Felicity Zavala at 112, Robert Bonilla at 119 pounds, Mark Zavala at 130 pounds, Kyle Castaneda at 135 pounds Jonathon Minero at 140 pounds, Alex Rivera at 145 pounds, Christian Conaway at 152 pounds, George Orozco at 189 pounds, Sammy Orozco at 215 pounds.

Fillmore wrestled Highland, Agoura, Chatsworth, Palmdale, Upland, Knight, Eastside and Lancaster over the 2 day tournament. While the Flashes gave up points due to vacancies on the roster, when measured Head to Head (the total score of those that wrestled) Fillmore beat every school with the exception of one. 7-1 Head to Head standings is an outstanding performance for Fillmore. After the Highland 10 Way the competition knows who the Fillmore Flashes are and what they are capable of.

The medals speak for themselves.
Sammy Orozco went 8 – 0. He took 1st Place at 215 pounds.
Christian Conaway went 7 – 1. He took 2nd Place at 152 pounds.
Kyle Castaneda went 6 – 2. He took 4th place at 135 pounds.
Mark Zavala went 7 – 1. He took 2nd place at 130 pounds.

Quickest pins went to Christian Conaway who had one pin in 11 seconds against Lancaster. Kyle Castaneda also jumped on the quick pin club with a 14 second pin against Lancaster.

Outstanding performances were turned in by Felicity Zavala who wrestled at 112 pounds. She went three full periods, 6 minutes of Varsity wrestling, against her male opponent from Highland. She also pinned her male opponent from Chatsworth!
Sammy Orozco put on a clinic of shear bull strength against much bigger opponents. To quote Coach Cal “You can’t out bull THE Bull”. George Orozco went 4 – 4, all 4 wins by pin. Oh, did I mention that George and Felicity are Freshman?
On 1/14 Robert Bonilla wrestled at 119 pounds and was 3 – 1 that day. To celebrate he ate a Double double and fries. Come Saturday morning he was 1.6 pounds over his weight limit. Prior to weigh-ins he ran and worked up a sweat and spit is body dry. He stepped on the scales and lost 1.2 pounds, which put him over his weight allowance by .4 pounds. A lessor wrestler might let that steal their mojo, but not Co-Captain Bonilla, he shrugged it off and moved up to 125 pounds and went 4 – 0 on Saturday.

The Highland 10 Way was an excellent skills test for the Flashes. Log on to Coach Cal’s post match interview for his comments.

Comments welcome.