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Medals all around
Webley, Valdovinos, Ybarra place at Mat Classic XXII
Dena Ybarra
Congratulations to fifth-place Breck Webley, coach Greg Martinez, fourth-place Baldo Valdovinos and second -place Manny Ybarra at Mat Classic XXII.
The three Quincy wrestlers who participated in Mat Classic XXII last weekend were perfect on the first day and darn good on the second day.
For the second straight season, Manny Ybarra placed second, while Baldo Valdovinos was fourth and Breck Webley was fifth.
The trio of Jacks made all the right moves on the first day.
“Friday after two rounds I was on cloud nine,” first-year head coach Greg Martinez said. “Six-and-oh at the state tournament, three guys going into the semifinals is more than I could ask for. That is the best I could have asked for.”
On the second day, Ybarra won his semifinals match, while Webley and Valdovinos lost and were sent into the consolation bracket. The two seniors pushed through, each winning one of their next two matches to come home with hardware.
“On Saturday morning I told the guys, ‘You all have medals. Now we just need to figure out which one it is.’ Saturday was obviously a tougher round,” Martinez said. “Those matches Breck and Baldo wrestled are the toughest matches they will ever wrestle in their life. They go from dreaming of a state championship to, ‘I lost, what do I do now?’ The fact that they won one of their next two matches says a lot about their personality and character.”
Day Two
Ybarra (37-3) • 130 pounds
Ybarra opened Saturday with a hard-fought 2-1 decision over Cody McNurlin of W.F. West (Chehalis). The match was decided on a penalty point; the other two scores came from escapes.
“Manny had a tough match. The kid from Chehalis was pretty stubborn, a defensive wrestler,” Martinez said. “Another coach told me he is very defensive and very quick to score on a bad shot. Manny’s shots had to be precise, and if he didn’t get it he had to be quick getting up to his feet and not sit on knees because he would have been scored on.
“Manny did what he had to do. He took enough shots to give the kid a stall point and got away when he needed to.”
The win vaulted him into the finals against defending champion Quinn Tate-Gannon of West Valley (Spokane). Tate-Gannon picked up a pair of takedowns in the first period to build a 4-1 lead on Ybarra.
“Gannon was just able to time it. It was a timing shot. We could see it, but it was tough to stop,” Martinez said. “He had his timing down, a lot better than anyone has wrestled Manny on his feet.”
Entering the final round, Ybarra was down 6-2 and appeared to finally find an opening against the Eagle grappler, but it turned out to be just momentary.
“At the start of the third round, Manny broke him down, got an arm bar and flipped him to his back and got a nearfall and Gannon was able to squirm out of there,” Martinez said. “I think there was some sweat involved in there. He slipped out of Manny’s grasp and got the reversal.”
Ybarra had to settle for second place again. Last season he was the runner-up at 135 pounds. This year he was closer to the big prize, but showed his character in the end.
“Even though he was upset, mad, angry and disappointed, he was still able to hold it together and finish with class,” Martinez said. “His one goal is a state championship. He understands that it’s good and he needs to be proud, but he’s not satisfied and I don’t expect him to be. He’s the hardest working wrestler I’ve seen or known in high school or college.”
Valdovinos (21-5) • 189 pounds
Saturday morning was a whirlwind for Valdovinos in his semifinal match against Othello’s Joey Gomez. He ended up losing 13-8, but the match was not decided until the end. Gomez controlled the match throughout the contest, pulling ahead 8-2 late in the third period. But Valdovinos did not quit and gave himself a chance in the final half-minute to win.
“(Baldo was) the heartbreak kid. He was in the semifinals and down 8-2 with about 30 seconds to go,” Martinez said. “He got an escape to make it 8-3 and threw Gomez to his back to make it 8-8 and was adjusting, being aggressive, trying to get the pin, and ended up being re-rolled to his back and lost 13-8.”
The loss dropped him into the consolation bracket, where he faced Austin Hansen of W.F. West. Valdovinos picked up his first pin of the weekend at the four-minute, nine-second mark and advanced into the third/fourth place match. He nearly took third against Deer Park’s Amon Collins, but again a late flurry of points went against Valdovinos.
“In Baldo’s third/fourth match, the kid is beating him by two points in the third round. Baldo cradles him, puts him on his back and gets the three nearfall and is up by one. With about 30 seconds left in the match, the guy fights off his back and gets the reversal and Baldo loses by one,” Martinez said. “The kid’s got heart and fight and will never give up. It’s just a testament to his personality, a testament to his season, really. He had more matches in the postseason than the regular season.”
Webley (29-15) • 160 pounds
Webley lost his semifinal match 12-3 to Ridgefield’s Joseph Zadrozny and dropped into the consolation bracket. Facing Ben Bellmont of W.F. West, he was edged out 4-3 and moved into the fifth/sixth place match against Ellensburg’s Tyler Coates. Coates was able to grab the first points on a takedown, but it was Webley who got the win before the buzzer sounded in the first period. They rolled out of bounds as Webley was trying to escape, so they went back to the circle for the restart.
“Breck got a stand-up, hit a switch and immediately had a cross-face cradle and stuck him in the first round,” Martinez said. “Within 30 seconds he got the reversal and there was no question he got the pin.”
The fifth-place medal represents a season of extra work for Webley.
“He really took it upon himself to work hard and come in and do the extra work, the running,” Martinez said. “He bought into the philosophy. He went above and beyond and it made the difference.”
Day One
Ybarra set the tone for the Jacks with his first-round pin against Blaine’s Jamal Mallak. He was a bit tentative in the first round, but quickly scored his pin in the second round.
“First match jitters, I guess,” Ybarra said.
Webley kept the pace, but had to work out of a second-period jam. In the first period he put Garret Mann of Eatonville in a cradle and scored five points, but then gave up a reversal. In the second period, Mann scored a quick reversal and followed that up by putting Webley on his back with well over a minute left. Webley’s saving grace was a well-placed elbow to stave off a pin, falling behind 8-5.
“I just got my elbow pinned on the mat, and I said, ‘I am way better than this guy,’" Webley said.
In the third round, Webley scored a reversal of his own, stuck Mann in a cradle and earned the pin at the 4:58 mark.
Valdovinos nearly gave the Jacks a third straight pin, but scored a technical fall to win 22-6 over Shaffer Hicks of Blaine. Valdovinos took control early with an eight-point first round, which started with a takedown and was coupled with a pair of three-point nearfalls.
In the second period Valdovinos had an escape and takedown to build an 11-0 lead, but was reversed and put on to his back. Valdovinos picked up a late reversal to head into the final period with a 13-5 lead. He scored a reversal and three-point nearfall, gave up an escape and grabbed one last takedown and a two-point nearfall for the 22-6 victory.
“It was like an anaconda eating a fish and rolling round,” said assistant coach Mike Wallace about Valdovinos’ barrage of points.
In the second round, Ybarra picked up a 10-2 major decision against Fife’s Jesus Gonzalez. In the first round both grapplers were tentative, as the only points scored came in the final 10 seconds via a takedown by Ybarra. His 2-0 lead was bumped to 4-0 after a second-period nearfall. But the match went into hyperdrive as Gonzalez scored a reversal, followed by an escape and a takedown by Ybarra inside the final 15 seconds.
“He got two, gave up two and recovered with three,” Martinez said. “I would take that exchange anytime.”
Ybarra added three more points in the final period by an escape and a takedown in the final 30 seconds for the final margin.
“I felt good,” Ybarra said. “I am wrestling smarter, I think.”
The Jacks’ good fortune continued with Webley’s 6-2 decision over Andrew Yordy of R.A. Long in the quarterfinals. Webely tried to turn Yordy, but settled for a 2-0 lead. Yordy chose the neutral position for the second-round start and again Webley got the takedown and rode out the final 51 seconds for the 4-0 lead.
“It was probably one of my best times of riding a guy,” Webley said. “I thought he would have chose top, because I took him down and rode him in the first.”
In the final period a reversal halfway through gave Webley a 6-0 lead, which lasted until the final seconds, when Yordy scored a reversal for a 6-2 final.
“He had a tough season and I told him at the Cheney tournament he was right there and I wasn’t worried about him,” Martinez said. “He said, ‘I’m tired of being right there.’"
He took it upon himself (to work on conditioning), and it is paying off. Of the six minutes, he dominated five minutes and 50 seconds of it.”
The final match of Friday was another barnburner for Valdovinos. He scored a 16-13 win over Kingston’s Travis Schriner. After a dominating first period, where he scored a pair of nearfalls en route to a 7-0 lead, he had to hold on for dear life in the second period. Schriner fell behind 9-0 and managed to score eight points in less than a minute to put the score at 10-8 entering the final period.
Schriner continued his takedown-and-let-up game until Valdovinos grabbed back the momentum with takedown at the 1:25 mark. He also took a 14-10 lead. Depsite running out of gas, Valdovinos scored two more points to Shriner’s three for the 16-13 win.
“I was out of energy,” Valdovinos said. “I don’t know what happened out there. I didn’t win the way I wanted, but, oh, well.”
