Just how far had the once-mighty Point Loma High School (PLHS) wrestling program fallen when new coach Phil Moore arrived three years ago? “I went to our first tournament with only three kids,” Moore said. Translation: The Pointers didn\u2019t have enough bodies to go up against other schools. The program was on life-support. Moore chuckled\u00a0when recalling those first days while looking out over a packed wrestling practice room on a recent afternoon. Not only are his wrestlers showing up for tournaments and dual meets, they are winning. And among his top competitors are two girls. This resurgence has Moore and his assistant, PLHS graduate Miles Doughty, exploring ways to offer the sport to Peninsula youth, much like county power-wrestling schools like Poway. So powerful is wrestling at that North County school that six-year-old children dream of starring on Titan mats in the future, Moore said. Perhaps the greatest indicator of the PLHS team\u2019s improvement came recently when the Pointers defeated a strong Morse team 38-32. The victory marked the first time in 17 years the PLHS squad has defeated the Tigers. Doughty clearly remembers that last victory because he wrestled and his father coached the Pointers to that 1994 victory, resulting in a league championship. The Morse battle also had other subscripts, according to Moore. It marked the varsity debut of Olga Harber, one of Point Loma High\u2019s pair of female grapplers. “I promised Olga she could wrestle on varsity if she won her weight class at last month\u2019s CIF championship meet for girls,” Moore said. Haber won the 135-pound title, so Moore sent her onto the mat for the critical Morse meet. “Olga told me, \u2018I guarantee he won\u2019t be able to pin me,\u2019” said Moore. “And although she lost, her guy couldn\u2019t pin her.” The other Lady Pointer wrestler, Elvira Gonzalez, also brought home a CIF championship in the 171-pound class. Moore remembers Gonzalez being disappointed with the medal she received from CIF officials for her title. “It shows dudes wrestling, not girls,” the miffed Gonzalez told Moore. Sean Cruz, wrestling at 152 pounds, is undefeated this year in league and dual meets. Among team achievements this year is a first-place finish against 17 other schools at the Ivan Olson Junior Varsity City Championship. While his Pointers are 7-2 in dual meets, Moore said that mark could easily be 9-0. “In both our losses, we had to forfeit when some kids didn\u2019t make weight,” Moore said. “The points we lost were more than the margin of defeat.” The varsity roster includes, by weight: \u2022 103:\u00a0 Chase Harris, freshman \u2022 112:\u00a0 Chase Schillato, sophomore \u2022 119:\u00a0 Alex Barbosa, junior \u2022 125:\u00a0 Alan Ibarra, senior \u2022 130:\u00a0 Eli Martinez, senior \u2022 135:\u00a0 Javier Anguiano, senior and Olga Harber, junior \u2022 140:\u00a0 Jesse Garcia, junior and Keegan Bell, sophomore \u2022 145:\u00a0 Duncan Swain, senior \u2022 152:\u00a0 Sean Cruz, senior \u2022 160:\u00a0 Ryan Martinez, junior \u2022 171:\u00a0 Bailey Dugdale, sophomore and Elvira Gonzalez, junior \u2022 189:\u00a0 Tony Melfi, sophomore \u2022 215:\u00a0 Jovanny Sanchez, sophomore \u2022 Heavyweight:\u00a0 Marty Gelenter, senior and Kevin Desta, junior For more information about youth and PLHS wrestling programs, e-mail Moore at philmo2022@yahoo.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just how far had the once-mighty Point Loma High School (PLHS) wrestling program fallen when new coach Phil Moore arrived three years ago? “I went to our first tournament with only three kids,” Moore said. Translation: The Pointers didn\u2019t have enough bodies to go up against other schools. The program was on life-support. Moore chuckled\u00a0when […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":279028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"PLHS wrestling revival brings about success, lures female grapplers","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11561,11553,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peninsula-beacon","category-sports","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}