Pitman High followed up last week’s thrilling, one-point victory over Golden Valley High in the Central California Conference opener with a dominating performance over Atwater High on Wednesday in a contest that saw the Pride win all 10 of the night’s matches.
Though the wide margin of Pitman’s 76-6 impressed its fans in attendance — Atwater earned its points via forfeit — the Pride’s nine victories via pin was undoubtedly their biggest feat of the night.
“They have high expectations for themselves and we have high expectations for them. We have to get pins and bonus points in order to win our next two league dual meets, so it’s good that our boys are coming out and doing it,” head coach Adam Vasconcellos said.
“The boys need to get used to doing it. We have good wrestlers and everything else, we can get takedowns, but we need to pin to get our bonus.”
Pitman’s sole win via decision took place in the night’s fourth match where Nick Valadez earned a 10-1 victory over Falcon Jonathan Jimenez. The rest of the Pride’s cast — Adam Sutterby, Haydon Mattox, Lorenzo Lewis, Cristian Clementi, Quentin Hernandez, Logan Wolfley, Kuda Gwasira, Jagjit Johal, and Eric Bejaran — put their opponent’s back to the mat as three pins were recorded in the first period, four were recorded in the second period, and one was recorded in the third period.
“The team wrestled good; they were ready to wrestle. They’re starting to get confidence in what we’re doing and believe in what we’re doing,” Vasconcellos said. “Our team’s doing what we’ve practiced and that’s a good thing.”
After initial concern that last week’s intense and highly emotional win over the Cougars might carry over into subsequent matches, Vasconcellos was encouraged to see his team rise up to the occasion rather than wrestle down against Atwater.
“We had a tough dual meet against Golden Valley last week so we had to regain focus this last week. You get them up so high for one match, and then that match is over and there are still a lot of matches left to wrestle,” Vasconcellos said. “So it is really hard to regain focus but we have a great coaching staff. They’re in these kids’ ears every day.”
Next up for Pitman is this weekend’s Jim Root Classic in San Jose before next Wednesday’s road dual meet against a tough Merced High team with a highly capable roster.
“Merced is ranked higher than us in the section and they have seven or eight kids that are pretty studly,” Vasconcellos said. “They have multiple kids in the section ranking so it’s going to be a battle.”