Española Valley’s four-year reign as District 2AAAA wrestling champions came to an end Feb. 13 in Los Alamos. The Bernalillo Spartans edged the Sundevils 164-159 in the team point totals to capture the district title.
Despite having five individual district champions and qualifying nine wrestlers for the upcoming state wrestling meet, the Sundevils couldn’t overtake Bernalillo’s strong start and finish. The Spartans started the meet by winning the 103-pound and 112-pound classes with pins, then finished by winning the 215-pound and heavyweight titles with pins.
“Bernalillo had the numbers and they scored a lot of points on the backside,” Española assistant coach Aaron Salinas.
By backside, Salinas was referring to wrestlers who score points by finishing third or fourth.
Bernalillo had six individual district champions and scored points in all weight classes. Española had just two third-place finishers and two runnerups to go with its five champions. The Sundevils forfeited matches in two of the 13 weight classes — heavyweight and 189-pounds — because it did not have wrestlers in those weight classes.
The highlight of the meet for the Sundevils was the dominating performance of senior Mariano Montoya, who pinned Los Alamos’ John Gibson just 16 seconds into the 145-pound weight class championship match. Montoya is 38-0 this season and is the top-seeded wrestler at 145 pounds in Class AAAA.
He is the first wrestler from Española to enter the state tournament undefeated and top-ranked,
“I feel good (going into the state tournament),” Montoya said. “I need to do my running this coming week.”
It was the final district wrestling meet for outgoing Española coach Henry MacErnie, who is retiring after 24 seasons at Española. He took the loss philosophically.
“That’s what happened, I have no choice but to take it,” MacErnie said. “Bernalillo got a lot of pins and we lost some matches we should have won.”
The Sundevils are unlikely to meet their preseason goal of winning the team Class AAAA state title this weekend, but they could medal as one of the top three teams if their five district champions and two district runnerups score points with top six finishes. The meet will be held Friday and Saturday at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho.