Stingray Wrestling Makes History: Five Masters Qualifiers! (Updated)
Written by Angelo L. Tolentino, Assistant Coach – Wrestling
Coastal Academy High
February 15, 2023
Stingray Wrestling has made history by presenting five Masters Qualifiers to this weekend’s Masters Sectional State Qualifier Tournament to be held at Mission Hills High this Friday and Saturday for the Boys, and Saturday for the girls. This season marks the highest amount of Masters qualifiers since the beginning of the program in 2019.
To qualify for Masters, wrestlers had place in the top four at the CIF Division IV Tournament held last week at Holtville High. Though freshman Nolan White did not qualify to go to Masters, he did qualify to go as an alternate. Nolan won four of his six matches pinning all of his opponents and placing at 5th. (CAH Wrestling has just been informed that Nolan is now wrestling at Masters. Nolan is the only freshman competing in his weight class)
In a stunning performance, new coming wrestler and sophomore, Markis Duffy, place second at CIF. In his standout match, Duffy upset the second seed, Kevin Alvarez of Imperial High, by a mounted “Saturday Night” pin. Duffy lost in the finals against first seed and senior, Cesar Estrella of Guajome Park Academy.
Junior Giancarlo Tolentino pinned every one of his opponents and made it to the finals. Tolentino lost a nail biter match to first seed and senior Dylan Hartley of Mar Vista by two points.
As a team, CAH Boys Wrestling posted in 10th place out of 22 schools in the division. This is quite an accomplishment since the boys team only entered 7 wrestlers of the 14 possible. Team captain, Giancarlo Tolentino, Nolan White, and Marcus Duffy join team captain, Madalyn McKellar and Charis Tolentino at the Masters Tournament starting Friday.
The Masters Tournament has 532 wrestlers registered representing 72 schools in the San Diego Section. Giancarlo Tolentino, Nolan White and Markis Duffy hope to make the top four while Madalyn McKellar and Charis Tolentino aim to make the top three in their respective weight classes to qualify for the CIF State Championship to be held in Bakersfield next week.
To cheer on your Stingray Wrestlers, the boys’ competition starts on Friday and continues to Saturday at 9am. The girls’ competition starts at Saturday at 9am both to be held at Mission Hills in San Marcos.