For the second consecutive year, Pitman High School’s wrestling program will head into the final day of the CIF State Wrestling Championships in Bakersfield with three wrestlers in contention in the championship brackets.
Representing the Pride in today’s semifinals are 175-pounder Mason Ontiveros, girls’ 100-pounder Lily Dizon and girls’ 130-pounder Baya Austin. Semifinal matches get underway from the Mechanics Bank Arena at 10:30 a.m. Those victorious will return to the mats at 6:30 p.m. for the championship finals.
Austin, a sophomore, has an opportunity to make consecutive state championship finals with a semifinal win today. Last year’s runner-up at 126 pounds, Austin won each of her three matches on Thursday and Friday by pin. She began the tournament Thursday by jumping out to a 13-2 lead before securing the pin with 30 seconds left in her Round of 32 match over Westlake’s Mackenzie English. She displayed similar dominance against Durham’s Raeanna Halvorson in the Round of 16, earning the fall 36 seconds into the second period. In her quarterfinal match Friday against Shafter’s Julissa Gonzalez, she earned the fall right before the end of the second period after jumping out to a 9-0 lead. Austin will face Elk Grove’s Skye Schneider today with a spot in the finals on the line.
Ontiveros, also a sophomore, has already bested his showing from a year ago when he placed fifth in the 170-pound division. By advancing to today’s semifinals, he is guaranteed fourth-place or better at 175 pounds. This year’s Sac-Joaquin Section Masters champion pinned Saheim Macias (Central of Fresno) at the 1:39 second mark in the Round 32. In the Round of 16, he clashed with Hughson’s three-time state qualifier Nicholas Perez. Though Perez put forward a valiant effort, Ontiveros was simply too much, muscling his way to a 19-7 majority decision. In Friday’s quarterfinal, Ontiveros dominated Max McWilliams (Calvary Chapel, Santa Ana) for as long as the match lasted, giving himself a 6-2 advantage in the second period, extending his lead to 10-4 in the third and pinning McWilliams with 30 seconds remaining. He will face Buchanan’s Branson John in the semifinals.
As for Dizon in the girls’ 100-pound bracket, she was riding high after a Round of 32 pin over Poway’s Ava Fodera. In the Round of 16, though, unranked Giselle Solano (Franklin of Elk Grove) nearly pulled off a massive upset of the No. 2 seeded Dizon. With Dizon carrying an 8-4 advantage in the third period, Solano pulled off a reversal to cut the score to 8-6 with 11 seconds left. Fortunately for Dizon, the reversal was all Solano had left in the tank. The Pitman freshman bounced back in the quarterfinals by earning a 10-3 decision over Kingsburg’s Josie Benitez. She now has a date with Katherine Hernandez of Bell Gardens in the semifinal round.
Also competing in the quarterfinals Friday for the Pride was Masters champion Lexie Capote (105), Brodie Johnson (165) and Troy Ceja (285). Despite each losing their matches, they can still place with consolation bracket wins today. The next round of consolation matches get underway at 9 a.m. Those in the win column of their respective first consolation matches will compete in fifth-place matches later in the day, while losers will compete in their respective seventh-place matches.
Like Perez, Turlock’s Jeremiah Bertalotto (138) and Pitman’s Carter Vannest (190) lost in the Round of 16 and spent Friday in consolation matches. Turlock’s Elijah Watson (215), Isaiah Bertalotto (144) and Aliah Bertalotto (Girls, 100), as well as Pitman’s Xadian Padilla (157), Lindsey Carolan (Girls, 140) and Patricia Bray (Girls, 110) each lost in their first matches of the tournament Thursday in the Round of 32.
Livestreams of each mat can be viewed throughout the day and can be found at www.nfhsnetwork.com/associations/cif/wrestling. Those in Bakersfield can purchase tickets via the Mechanics Bank Arena Box Office and on AXS.com by searching “CIF State Wrestling.”