Tonge Gets 3rd, Turner 8th at CIF State Wrestling

BAKERSFIELD – It was same thing all over again last weekend. Buchanan and Clovis, the two Fresno-area rivals fighting over the CIF State Wrestling championship. Clovis had won three titles in a row and Buchanan was trying to knock them off.

In the end it was Buchanan’s turn to take home a state championship scoring a whopping 260.5 points with ten wrestlers placing in the top eight.

Clovis ended up 214.5 points and eight grapplers medaling.

Finishing third and fourth was San Diego-area wrestling power Poway along with Gilroy from the Central Section.

But, this year the Sac-Joaquin Section was pretty well represented by Elk Grove, Vacaville and Folsom.

Elk Grove’s Kelani Tonge finished third at 132 pounds. He made it to the quarterfinals on Friday then lost 7-3 to Durbin Lloren of Buchanan. Tonge then mowed through the competition on Saturday and defeated Alex Felix of Gilroy, 5-4, to win the third place medal.

Terrell Turner, who placed second the week previous at the Section Masters, won his first bout at 145 pounds with a 8-4 decision over Michael Neves of J.W. North. But, Turner dropped a 7-4 decision to Beau Bradley of Monache in the next round.

In the consolations Turner picked up three straight wins then lost in the medal round to Josh Kim of Santiago. In the 7^th place match he was defeated by Luis Enloe of Poway, 6-3.

Perhaps the Herd’s best chance for a medal going into Bakersfield was 113-pounder Jacob Seto, but the junior lost his opening match to Javier Alanz of Clovis West, 10-3. Then in his next match, Seto lost to Angelo Martononi of Folsom, 1-0, and was out of the tournament.

At 126 pounds Lokahi Tonge dropped his opening match, a 12-3 major decision to Chris Deloza of Clovis North. Then in consolation he won three matches in a row, but opened Saturday with a 8-1 loss to Adrian Marrufo of Dos Palos.

Todd Alexander, Elk Grove’s 152-pounder was pinned by Evan Wick of San Marino in his opening match Friday. He then was decisioned by Christian Chacon of Castro Valley and was out of the state championships.

As a team, Elk Grove finished in 27^th place.

Vacaville heavyweight Mike McCauley made it to the semi-finals on Saturday and ended up in fourth place. His Vaca teammate, Jake Levengood, was a semi-finalist at 220 pounds and ended up in fifth.

Folsom’s 132-pounder Curtis Booth finished fifth, losing to Tonge in the medal round, 3-2. Jason Berquist ended up with a third place at 160 pounds.