Justin Reed
Staff Writer
Mira Costa’s wrestling team sent junior Jean Paul Lebosnoyani to California interscholastic federation individual states at the Rabobank Arena, Bakersfield on March 4 and 5. He went into the tournament after finishing third in the southern central division of CIF.
In Lebosnoyani’s previous tournament he finished in third place in the Masters tournament putting him in 23rd place in California going into this individual tournament.
“He actually pinned the wrestler who finished 4th in State and he beat the guy who finished 8th in State 11-5 in their match,” Coach Jimmy Chaney said.
Lebosnoyani went into the individual states tournament ranked 23rd after doing well in the Masters tournament. But with an unlucky draw going into states he wrestled the 9th and 12th place wrestlers who both went on to finish in the top ten in the state.
“I had two matches at state and both of my opponents were ranked in the top ten in the state where I was ranked 23,” Lebosnoyani said. “The ranking were very accurate so my matches were very tough.”
In Lebosnoyani’s first match against the 9th seed wrestler both wrestlers continued to rack up points against each other but after a missed opportunity to gain points failed Lebosnoyani tried to hastily end the match and ended up losing his first match of the tournament.
“For my first match I was doing well at the beginning but at one point in the match I missed a chance to get three points and throughout the rest of the match I was rushing myself to get them back,” Lebosnoyani said. “After rushing myself in the match I made a few small mistakes that led to me losing the match.”
In Lebosnoyani’s second match against the 12th seed wrestler Lebosnoyani’s opponent capitalized on a small mistake of his and pinned him in the first five minutes of the match.
“My second match of the day against the 12th seed wrestler ended quickly as I made a mistake and ended up on my back and unable to recover from it and lost the match,” Lebosnoyani said.
In States, Lebosnoyani was wrestling in the 170 lb. weight class and mainly wrestled against older and bigger opponents. In these matches Lebosnoyani was going up in weight while many of his opponents had cut to get into the weight class.
“Jean Paul wrestled well in his weight class but this year he was smaller than most of his opponents but he was able to make up for this with his superior skill,” Chaney said. “Hopefully next year once he has gained some weight he will be able to be bigger than his opponents while still using his skill to win.”
In next season Lebosnoyani will easily be able to rise to the top ten wrestlers in California as he and the rest of the team continue to train whenever possible. For his next season he will have a better time rising the ranks as all the older and bigger wrestlers will have graduated leaving him to take a spot in the top ten.
“I think next year it will be a lot easier for me and I believe that I’ll go into the year as one of the top ten wrestlers by default,” Lebosnoyani said.
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