Three Cerritos College wrestlers reached the finals of the Santa Ana Tournament on Saturday and helped the Falcons to a fifth place finish. The team compiled 91 points and shared fifth place with East Los Angeles College, while Palomar College won the tournament with 144 team points. This Saturday, Cerritos will travel to the West Valley Tournament.

    Reaching the championship matches were 142-pound freshman Paul Lyon (Shepherd, MI HS), 157-pound sophomore David Razo (La Quinta HS) and 197-pound sophomore Al Kinslow (Santa Monica HS), while three other wrestlers advanced to the semi-finals of their respective weight classes, but were defeated.

    As for Lyon, he opened by pinning Andrew Mathis of Sacramento City College in 2:40 before posting a 6-4 victory over Johnny Rios (Fresno City College). That sent him to the semi-finals, where Lyon defeated top-seeded Brandon McKnight of Victor Valley College. But, in the finals, Lyon was defeated by the tournament’s lower weight MVP, Juan Archuleta of Santa Ana College, 5-1. At 157 pounds, Razo, the second seed, won three matches to reach the finals, beating Adrian Gonzalez of East Los Angeles College by default, Sean Barbour of Santa Ana, 9-4 and then Sacramento City’s Gavin Ludwig, 10-6. He was defeated in the finals of his second tournament this season, 12-4 by Palomar’s Louie Desante. After winning the Cerritos Tournament the week before, Kinslow was the top seed at 197 pounds and shut out two of his three opponents to reach the championship match. He posted a 14-0 win over Greg Villalobos of Palomar, 14-3 win against Richard Diaz of East Los Angeles and then blanked Matt Garcia of West Hills, 6-0. But in the finals, Kinslow was pinned by Tod Molesworth of Moorpark College in 6:43 when the score was 2-2 at the time.

    Those who reached the semi-finals, but lost their last two matches included sophomore Jason Carrillo (Torrance HS) at 125 pounds, freshman Mike Koehnlein (Marina HS) at 142 pounds, sophomore Tony Ruiz (Loara HS) at 149 pounds, while sophomore heavyweight Chip Baker (Paramount HS) went through the consolation bracket and just missed out on competing for third place.