City College Panthers hosted a wrestling tournament invitational on Saturday, Sep. 16 in the North Gym where they competed and won against wrestlers from 12 California community colleges.
City College won the tournament with a total of 282.5 points, followed by Fresno City College with 250.5 points and Bakersfield College with 199.5 points.
Originally called the Sacramento City College Invitational, City College agreed to change the name in honor of longtime head coach David Pacheco. Pacheco served as head coach for 39 years and is known as a mentor to wrestlers and people who knew him.
“I’m very happy to name the tournament after Pacheco, after all of his accomplishments he has already done with the wrestling team and organization in the past years of building the SCC wrestling team,” said new head coach Marques Gales. He also said he would like to continue the school tradition with winning as much as possible.
“Pacheco was a very well-decorated coach and mentor for a lot of the wrestlers in the past years and I would like to continue to be that type of coach for these guys as well,” said Gales.
The tournament featured wrestlers from Fresno City College, Bakersfield College, Modesto College, Santa Rosa Junior College, College of the Redwoods, Skyline College, Chabot College, Cuesta College, Lassen College, Shasta College, Delta College, as well as an unattached college.
During the event, City College dedicated its championship trophy to Justin McAllister, a City College football player who died the week of the tournament, as the team felt they lost a fellow athlete and a great friend, according to a statement on the wrestling team’s website.
The tournament opened up with each school wrestling their own teammates in their respective corners for warmups until the first matches began.
During the tournament, there were a total of five mats and five teams at a time, with three teams downstairs and two teams upstairs. There were a total of five rounds with 2-3 minutes of wrestling. The tournament used points gained by force outs, pins and submissions for each team to score up to three points per round, which would keep tallying until the rounds were over. The tournament also included different weight classes, where each school would wrestle different schools within the same weight division.
After 18-year-old City College freshman biology major Caden Diamond had his final match of the day he said, “I had a crappy match, but came and won the match I needed to win. I do feel that I could have done better but I did get the win I needed against my opponent, and that’s all that matters.” Diamond added, “ Tonight has been a great night for me and SCC, it has also been a great tournament all together all so far with so many great matches.”
Benjamin Quilpa, an 18-year-old freshman business major at City College would qualify for the championship tournament in his weight class, the 133-pound weight division. Quilpa said, “Feels good to win, but beat up and sore. I am not too fond of it. I am very tired and want to rest, but my love for wrestling kept me moving forward to my championship medal, which I am very happy to win.”
Ethan Boyd, a 19-year-old sophomore kinesiology major and one of City College’s three team leaders, also qualified in his weight class for the championship, which was in the 165-pound weight division.
“I like being a leader and leading by example, I like sharing techniques and making everyone get better and bring out the best of themselves to be great,” Boyd said of his involvement on the wrestling team.
Pacheco attended the event and when asked about his thoughts on the invitational’s namesake said, “It’s a great honor and a great tribute to me.” Pacheco also stated, “I am very much retired now, and I have so much free time that I am enjoying. For example, a lot of baseball watching, a lot of traveling and camping just enjoying nature and my retirement.”
