Shorthanded Criminals enjoying extended success on wrestling mats
The Yuma High boys wrestling team remains undefeated at 7-0 while the girls are also off to a strong start at 6-1
YUMA, Ariz. ( KYMA, KECY-TV ) - Last weeked the Yuma Criminals boys and girls wrestling teams continued their early season success at the 49th annual Jerry Benson Tournament in Buckeye.
"The tournament has always been a good but quite small tournament with only 18 teams competing in it last year including us," Yuma head coach Jose Cazares said. "This year was different."
Cazares said that instead of 18 schools, this year the tournament added a dozen more.
"The coach at Buckeye somehow recruited over 30 teams including Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas," Cazares said. "What was very cool to see was former UFC champion Frank Mir there as a coach."
Mir was coaching his son who ended up winning his weight class at 190lbs.
"We also had multiple Vegas state champs and placers and one girl who was a USA National Finalist face us competing at 107 lbs," Cazares said. "Yuma High had seven girls enter the two day competition and we ended up getting 8th place as a girls team overall with 3 placers."
Divina Diaz at 107 lbs placed 2nd. Isabella Flores at 185 lbs placed 3rd and Adriana Ayala at 120 lbs placed 4th.
The boys team placed 9th out of 32 teams with four placers and one wrestler, Sabian Russell, winning the bonus trophy “The most Outstanding lightweight Wrestler of the tournament “
Russell took first place at 132 lbs. Heavyweight Joseph Bowen placed 3rd, Jayden Anderson placed 5th at 126 lbs as did Raymond Nuñez at 157 lbs.
The Criminals wrestlers were then back on action on Wednesday at Dysart high school against Dysart, Odyssey Institute and Kingman.
The boys swept the meet and improved to 7-0 defeating Odyssey 34-33, Dysart 39-35 and Kingman 66-12.
The Yuma girls team suffered their first loss of the season, 50-34 against Odyssey. The girls then bounced back and defeated Kingman 48-42 then Dysart 54-24 to improve to 6-1 on the season.
The Criminals are back in action tonight and tomorrow, December 9th & 10th at the Marana Tiger Duals at Marana high school.
