Model Defeats Fremont for Wrestling Championships

Published Date

By Chris Kaftan

It came down to the final bout of the match. Model Secondary School for the Deaf had been leading the entire match, but slowly California School for the Deaf at Fremont cut the deficit. Now Fremont was in the lead 38-33. Whoever won the 138-weight class would win the team championships for their school.

In the red, white and blue singlet was Model’s Diego Trejo. In orange and black was Fremont’s Enrico Harmount. Both were experienced wrestlers and knew the fine arts of grappling. At the end of an intense bout that saw both wrestlers try to outwit the other, it took several costly errors from Harmount that gave Trejo the victory, and Model jumped back into the lead, winning the team championships of the 8^th Annual Willigan Wrestling Tournament, 39-38.

Model had the clear advantage in the middle and heavy weight classes as they jumped to a 21-3 lead, while Fremont capitalized with their lightweight classes and was able to cut the deficit to one point at the 126-weight class.

Both Fremont and Model had won their respective pools in round robin play, with Model winning 55-18 against Texas School for the Deaf and 57-12 against Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. Fremont won 58-18 against Maryland School for the Deaf and 71-12 against Indiana School for the Deaf. With both seeded #1, it was up to the other four schools to wrestle for a chance to wrestle against Fremont and Model.

Both schools ended up facing opponents they intimately knew – Fremont was paired with Texas in the semifinals while Model got their cross-state rivals Maryland in the other semifinal. Fremont defeated Texas 58-21 and Model defeated Maryland 45-24. Texas and Maryland would face each other in the third-place match.

In the third-place match, Texas took advantage of their expertise in the middleweights and jumped to a 24-9 lead before Maryland slowly crept back with their heavy weights and Maryland had cut the deficit to three by the time they had reached the 106-weight class. With Maryland’s Lance Brewer’s pin of Texas’ Adan Nunez in the 126-weight class, Maryland had finally captured the lead 39-36 and like Fremont and Model had done later in the night, it was up to the final bout to determine who would get third place. Darrius Doe of Maryland pinned Vitaliy Dovgalyuk of Texas to win the match 45-36 for Maryland.

In the consolation match, Indiana defeated Florida, 36-24.