Folsom qualify 10 wrestlers to state tournament

Folsom's record-breaking year continued on the wrestling mats over the weekend as 10 wrestlers, seven boys and three girls, qualified for the CIF State Wrestling tournament in Bakersfield this weekend. The 10 wrestlers qualified by placing in the top-five positions in their respective weight classes. Seven of the 10 qualifiers also made it to the championship matches, which is another team record. The other three wrestlers had to win their final match to qualify. All 19 wrestlers who represented Folsom High won at least one match at Masters, thereby helping the teams to top-five finishes, as the boys' placed fourth as a team and the girls' took fifth. Folsom will have three wrestlers seeded for state, as Kingston Cruzat, Masters champion at 106, will be seeded fourth; Nox Cruzat, who took second at 113 while wrestling up a weight class, will be seeded 14th, and Orion Hill, champion for the second straight year, will be seeded ninth at 138 pounds, after pinning all of his opponents at Masters. On the girls' side, Pia Hill (100) took second place at Masters, as she had a pin and two technical falls before losing a heartbreaker in the finals, 1-0. She took third last year as a freshman. Annika Scott had two pins and a technical fall leading to her finals match at 120 pounds, which she lost to Oak Ridge's returning state placer Jordan DeLeon, 6-2. Like Hill, Scott will be making her second trip to the state tournament. Folsom's third female qualifier was Peyton Ollinger, who placed fifth at 130 pounds. After reaching the semifinals with a major decision and a pin, she dropped a couple of close matches (both by a 4-2 score) to fall into the pressure-packed fifth-place match. Ollinger shrugged off the nerves and dominated her way to state by getting a 17-2 technical fall. Folsom had two other female wrestlers compete and win matches: Leanna Remington (105) and Kaileia McFarland (115). On the boys' side, Folsom set a record with five finalists with two coming away with championships (Kingston Cruzat and Orion Hill). Cruzat won all five of his matches. In the semifinals, he beat the 28th ranked wrestler in the state and in the finals he beat No. 8 ranked Alex Portugal of Elk Grove, 4-2, to win the weight class. Hill (138) was the most dominant wrestler in the tournament, as he was the only one to pin all of his opponents. The longest match he had was 1:19 into the first period, as he pinned five opponents in 4:39 of wrestling. Nox Cruzat (113), Kai Yi-Berg (144) and Kayden Hoang (165) also reached the finals, but lost and took second place. Cruzat had four pins to reach the finals before losing 10-3 to Elk Grove's Isaiah Gonzaga, the ninth-ranked wrestler in the state. Yi-Berg was equally impressive as Cruzat, as he pinned three opponents and reached the final where he lost to Pitman's Edward Sheeran, 15-4, the eighth-ranked wrestler in the state. Hoang took out two state-ranked wrestlers in the quarters and semis before losing to Del Oro's Jamison French, 4-1, in the finals. Two other Folsom wrestlers had to qualify the hard way, battling their way through the consolation bracket to reach the fifth-place match. The stakes are high in this match, as the winner punches their ticket to the state tournament, and the loser stays home the next weekend. Like Ollinger on the girls side, both of Folsom's boys were able to get the victory and earn their trip to Bakersfield. Anthony Cruz (132) won his first two matches by technical fall, but then suffered a narrow defeat in the quarterfinals at the end of day one. Cruz would need to get at least three wins on the second day and with his season and career on the line, he stepped up, getting two falls to reach the top-six before dropping an overtime defeat to send him into the fifth-place match. Cruz responded with a 8-0 shutout major decision over his Oakdale opponent to qualify for state for the third straight year. Folsom's final boys qualifier was the biggest surprise to those outside of Folsom High wrestling. "We knew Logan could do it, but others probably didn't give him much of a chance, after finishing fourth at last week's divisionals," Folsom coach Mike Collier said. Logan Hara (120) stepped up when it mattered most and went 6-2 over the weekend to finish in fifth place and qualify for state. His only losses came to the same wrestler from Vacaville, who was a returning state qualifier and finished third at Masters. Along the way, Hara had to beat a couple of wrestlers who he had previously lost to, including one last week from Saint Mary's. In the do-or-die fifth-place match, Hara came through with a 4-0 decision, with a tough ride on top to close out the match and will be heading to Bakersfield in his senior season. The Bulldogs had three other wrestlers make it to day 2, and they all finished in the top-12 for their weight classes: Max Wong (126), Sean Ramos (175) and Rocky Ortiz (215). Four other Folsom wrestlers scored points for the Bulldogs: Grant Martinez (150), Phuc Nguyen (157), Chidubem Mmagu (190) and Colin Graham (285).