Huskies Finally Hit the Home Court Mats vs Victor Valley

by Cerwin D Haynes

Road-weary and shorthanded, the East Los Angeles College Wrestling squad finally got to perform in front of their home crowd tonight, hosting Victor Valley College.

Head Coach Miguel Soto knew his team was facing a steep uphill battle to pull off a team win: he only had five wrestlers available to compete, which spotted the Rams 30 team points as the Huskies had to forfeit five weight classes. In order to win the overall match, all five wrestlers would need to score pinfalls to force a tie, and then rely on tiebrakers such as fastest pinfall time to give the Huskies the victory. 

They almost pulled it off.

Josue Aguilar (157 lbs), Troy Garza (174 lbs), and Devin Peries (197 lbs) all scored pinfalls while Nick Lopez (184 lbs) won via forfeit. It was up to heavyweight Luis Robles to find a way to pin Frank Herrera to the mat to get the final six points the Huskies would need. But Herrera - the product out of nearby Huntington Park-  flipped the script, outmanuevering and then pinning Robles to secure the team win for Victor Valley.

HUSKY BITS:

• Retired former Huskies head coach and Hall of Famer Ralph Valle returned to campus and handled match announcement duties.
• Tonight was ELAC's only home match of 2021 before the annual Brawl at ELAC takes place next month.

UP NEXT

East LA has the weekend to rest up before the head up PCH to San Luis Obispo to wrestle in the Cuesta Individuals on October 29 & 30.