Senior Night was special for Tyler Pederson and Amy Fearnside.
Not because they won their final wrestling matches at Live Oak High
School, or because the Acorns trounced Westmont 50-20 before a
large, festive crowd Tuesday. The Acorns remained on pace to at
least tie for first in dual meets in their first season as part of
the Blossom Valley Athletic League’s elite Mount Hamilton
Division.
Senior Night was special for Tyler Pederson and Amy Fearnside. Not because they won their final wrestling matches at Live Oak High School, or because the Acorns trounced Westmont 50-20 before a large, festive crowd Tuesday.
The Acorns remained on pace to at least tie for first in dual meets in their debut season as part of the Blossom Valley Athletic League’s elite Mount Hamilton Division.
Pederson and Fearnside couldn’t picture that four years ago.
“It feels great, feels unbelievable,” Pederson said. “It’s just a great experience seeing what the program came from to get here. We came a long way.”
From 2009-12, Live Oak has climbed from the C to the A division in the BVAL, groomed two section champions and a state-title contender in sophomore Isaiah Locsin, and finished tops in its conference in dual meets two seasons in a row.
A win next week at lowly Prospect will make it three.
“We went from the bottom to the top in record time,” said Fearnside, who on Saturday won the 108-pound Central Coast Section girls championship. “It’s really exciting.”
Live Oak (5-1) scored seven pins Tuesday and won eight of the 10 matches. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, the Acorns bumped almost all of their wrestlers up a weight class to avoid surrendering points off forfeits.
“It sure does add to the win because it’s so much tougher to wrestle up,” LOHS coach Robert Fernandez said. “Sometimes it pays off; sometimes it doesn’t. In this case it did.”
The Acorns essentially clinched it with big wins by the Locsin cousins, Isaiah and Nick, over Kenji Young and Adam Matsui, two of the Warriors’ standouts at 128 pounds and 140, respectively. Isaiah moved up two weights but still won convincingly, pinning Young with six seconds left in the second round to stay perfect (34-0) for the season.
“I just try to go out there and do my same thing,” Isaiah said. “It felt awesome to have the seniors here and to win for them. It was just a good night all around.”
Nick Locsin prevailed in the most exciting match of the night. He and Matsui are ranked near the top 10 in the section and looked every bit as even, with Matsui building a 2-0 lead and Locsin rallying ahead with an escape and a reversal late in the second round. Locsin slipped behind Matsui for a go-ahead takedown with 51 seconds left in the third and held on to win 5-3.
“That was just huge, absolutely,” Fernandez said. “Matsui’s a quality, quality wrestler, and he’s a tough kid. That really set the tone.”
Live Oak extended the lead with pins by Pederson (147), Josh Acosta (154) and freshman Morgan Smith (222).
“I was hoping to get a pin for the crowd, just make it a big one,” Pederson said. “I didn’t want to come out and not do my best.”
Kyle Young won by technical fall, 19-3, at 134 pounds, and Nick Pass scored seven consecutive points in the third period to win 7-4 at 162 for Westmont (1-5).
The Acorns were as dominant as ever in the lower weights, building a 24-0 lead with pins by Jonathan Robles-Rials (108), Fearnside (115), Austin Langford (122) and Isaiah Locsin, the crowd pounding its feet for each one.
“It was harder than usual to focus, just because tonight felt so special,” Fearnside said.
The Acorns changed their usual pre-match chant from “Live Oak” to “league champs” and plan to keep it that way through the Feb. 18 BVAL Tournament. There they can culminate their rise through the league’s subdivisions by being the best of all three.
“We’re definitely ready for it,” Isaiah Locsin said. “There’s always room for improvement, but I feel really confident that our team’s gonna win it all.”
