Spanish Springs cleans up at Windsor’s King of the Mat wrestling tournament

While individual Redwood Empire wrestlers fared relatively well in the 19th annual King of the Mat wrestling tournament on Saturday at Windsor, it was defending tournament champion Spanish Springs (Sparks, Nevada), the only non-California school among the 30 competing, that won the team title for the second consecutive year.

“We all knew what was coming with Spanish Springs,” Windsor coach and tournament organizer Rich Carnation said. “Team-wise they won because they had a good placer in every weight class.”

In the 14 weight classes, Spanish Springs won two and finished in second place in six, tallying a winning score of 217 points.

The second- through fifth-place finishers were Benicia (180.5), Folsom (170), Windsor (135), and Northgate (101) of Walnut Creek.

Casa Grande was the second-highest finisher among the 13 Redwood Empire schools with seventh place (87). Other local teams that finished in the top 20 include: Analy (12th), Santa Rosa (13th), Petaluma (14th), Middletown (15th), Upper Lake (18th), and Sonoma Valley (19th).

Windsor finished fourth despite only wrestling in nine weight classes. Five wrestlers were unable to participate because of the flu and injuries.

“Our kids wrestled very well,” Carnation said. “We did what I thought we could, do but we could have done better (if the Jaguars had a full squad).”

Unfortunately for the Jaguars, the event ended on a somber note as top senior Perez Perez broke his left foot in three places during the final of the 154 pound match against Conrad Trevino of Del Campo (Fair Oaks). Perez was winning 3-0 in the second round before being having to forfeit because of the injury. Perez was in the process of flipping Trevino when Trevino’s knee landed on Perez’s foot instead of the mat.

“It was a freak accident. Never seen anything like that before,” Carnation said. “I was having a great day until the Perez injury put a cooler on things for Windsor. It was very deflating all the way around.”

Carnation said Perez was due home from the hospital late Saturday night and slated for surgery to repair the break next week. Carnation added that Perez’ high school wrestling career is over, but he would recover and wrestle competitively again.

“Perez had some really lofty goals for this season. In our local area, Perez was as close to an automatic six points as there is,” Carnation said. “He will want to get back in the saddle and he will end up wrestling again. He is a pretty resilient person.”

The Jaguars did have two champions: Blake Fredrickson defeated Devin Griffen of Spanish Springs at 108 and Trent Silva defeated Eric Santo of Benicia at 147.

The other Redwood Empire weight class winner was Trevor Bagan of Analy, who defeated Dallin Gresko of Spanish Springs at 122.

In addition to Perez, three other local wrestlers made it to the finals but did not win: Jose Fernandez III of Upper Lake (134), Tyler Winslow of Sonoma (197), and PJ Toleafoa of Santa Rosa (287).

“The local kids wrestled well,” Carnation said. “This tournament was tough sledding.”

About 300 wrestlers participated in the event on seven different mats in three gyms on campus. As named by the coaches the outstanding lightweight award was given to Angelo Martinoni of Folsom; outstanding middleweight to Silva; and outstanding upper-weight to Kyle Richards of Folsom.

“It was a good tournament all around. Everyone said they wanted to come back,” Carnation said. “The competition was great and the sportsmanship was amazing.”