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The Holtville High wrestling team poses for a group photo after finishing second at CIF competition on Saturday at Mater Dei High School in Chula Vista. (PHOTO COURTESY OF CARMEN ANGULO / February 20, 2013) |
CHULA VISTA — When the final heavyweight bout ended in the CIF-San Diego Section Division IV championships in wrestling, Holtville High was getting plenty of congratulations.
The Vikings had been declared winners by half of a point and head coach C.J. Johnston was even getting congratulatory texts.
That’s when things got confusing.
“The Valley Center coach thought he wasn’t being awarded enough points for his final victories,” Johnston said. “He contested the score … CIF ended up changing the whole format of how it was scored and changed the standings and put us in second.”
Johnston asked for details of the scoring but even he was unsure how it was handled.
“I got some (explanation) but I’m not sure exactly the whole details,” he said. “I kind of went through and checked on how I felt it should have been scored; either way, we’re moving on.”
The Vikings aren’t dwelling on the final result and are looking forward to this weekend’s Master’s championships with 10 wrestlers looking forward to moving on to the State championships.
“Our guys, they’re pretty motivated. I think they got a little more confidence from this past week,” Johnston said. “More importantly, I think it shows the guys are heading in the right direction.”
Master’s will be held Friday and Saturday at Eastlake High in Chula Vista. The top three in each division will move on to the State championships scheduled for March 1-2 in Bakersfield.
Johnson said they have already talked to CIF-SDS Commissioner Jerry Schniepp and will retouch the issue next week.
“We already talked to the commissioner to check and make sure everything is legit, we’ll get it double-checked,” Johnston said. “We’re happy where we’re at, we were hoping for at least runner-up and we exceeded our expectations.”
For now, they will focus on this weekend.
“We were right there, we were close, it is what it is, we have another week and we can’t look back and dwell on that,” Johnson said.
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