Reloaded Calvary Chapel Unleashes Weapons on Santa Ana

John Azevedo hates the term rebuilding.

Instead, the Calvary Chapel wrestling coach would rather refer to his team’s mediocre performance last season as “a time to reload.”

The Eagles apparently have plenty of ammunition this season and they came out firing Wednesday against Santa Ana, avenging last year’s dual-meet defeat in a crushing, 46-14, nonleague victory.

“We didn’t do anything special,” Azevedo said. “We just wanted to go out there and wrestle.”

Last season, defending state champion Calvary Chapel struggled, losing at the Southern Section Division I finals and finishing seventh at state. In addition, Santa Ana beat Calvary Chapel, 43-21, handing the Eagles their first dual-meet loss since 1991.

But Wednesday, the Eagles demonstrated why they are the state’s top-ranked team, winning 11 of 14 matches against the second-ranked team in the county.

“I was expecting a little more from our guys, but Calvary is at a different level now,” Santa Ana Coach Scott Glabb said.

The Eagles opened the meet with two pins. Mario Estrada (103 pounds), who was moved up from junior varsity, pinned Frank Avalos in 3 minutes 54 seconds. Anthony Archuleta, who’s ranked first in the county at 103 but was wrestling at 112, pinned Oscar Herrea in 1:01.

Santa Ana scored its first points at 125, when Gilbert Melendez beat Donovan Johnson, 10-2.

But Steve Esparza then scored a 13-2 major decision over Juan Silva at 130 pounds, the first of seven consecutive victories by the Eagles.

In the Century League:

No. 3 Villa Park 63, Canyon 9--Brendan Hancock, Aron Wisniewski, Nick Diaz, Pooyan Bahmani, Matt Kuntz and Jose Lopez had pins for Villa Park (4-0 in league).