Over the last couple of years, the Millikan and Poly dual wrestling meet has gone a long way to deciding the Moore League champion.
Wednesday night before Winter Break was no different. For the boys, the Rams battled before pulling away from Poly with a 52-29 thanks to their middle and light heavyweights. Meanwhile the Long Beach Poly girls took a big step forward with a dominating 64-18 win over the Rams as they look for their third league title in a row.
The Millikan girls team started the match in dominating fashion taking the first five matches of the meet, with four wins via pin.
Riley Pestanas, Reighlene Valdez and Daniella Angelas all picked up victories by pin with Angelas pinning her opponent withing 45 seconds of the match starting.
Millikan’s first win of the night came thanks to Abigail Lee. Isabella Martinez picked up the Rams next pin to make it 40-12.
While Poly’s Berylynn Solia-Tago won due to a forfeit, her sister and freshman Brazil Solia-Tago picked up a big win as she wrestled up a couple weight classes.
“Today was challenging,” Solia-Tago said. “I bumped up weight and it was challenging because this defines the work we’ve been putting in, in our wrestling roomand in practice and I just want to give all glory to God because I’ve been praying for stuff like this to happen.”
On the boys side, the Jackrabbits gave Millikan everything they had after shuffling some guys around after a last-minute scratch right before they traveled to take on the Rams.
But, Millikan’s depth shined as their midweights once again continued to come up big to fend off the Jackrabbits after Poly took a 25-18 lead.
Chris Anguiano gave Millikan a 30-25 lead with a pin and the sophomore continues his season in impressive fashion after training with the US National Team as part of Team California during the offseason.
“It was a great experience to represent my state, I had a lot of fun, learned a lot, came back and then just training for more,” Anguiano said.
Picking up the win was on the top of the Rams list and they accomplished it as they continue to push for another league title.
“The motivation was that that league title,” Anguiano said. “All of us we all wanted it again, we’re all hungry for it. This is the match to win, and we won it and hopefully we’ll get the title soon.”
Moore League play will resume in January.
