Forging Victory Out of a Great Loss

When Danny Brannon stepped onto the mat during the Southern Section Division II dual meet wrestling championships two weeks ago at North Torrance High, he could sense something was missing.

Brannon, who wrestles at 189 pounds, scanned the faces of the home crowd, and then it hit him: Bob Hayes wasn’t there.

“I just broke down,” Brannon said

Hayes, the grandfather of Matt Ryan, North Torrance’s 160-pounder, had suffered a heart attack during the Bay League finals on Feb. 12 and died a few days later at age 70.

He was a regular at the Saxons’ matches, often driving wrestlers to competitions and working the door. He rarely missed a match, so when he did, it hit the team pretty hard.

“It was kind of weird,” Brannon said. “You’d always see him ... and then he wasn’t there. It was kind of empty.”

The team dedicated the remainder of the season to Hayes. The wrestlers put white tape on their headgear in the shape of a cross and wrote tributes. A team in the middle of a topsy-turvy season suddenly had a purpose.

A team that Coach Don Garriott said he sometimes had found difficult to control had found its focus.

North Torrance won the dual meet championship, the first section wrestling title in school history, and then won the Central Division individual championship a week later.

They were the first section titles in any sport at North Torrance since 1973.

Today and Saturday, a school-record eight wrestlers from North Torrance will compete in the Southern Section Masters championships at Fountain Valley High, each looking to earn a berth in the state championships next weekend at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.

“His death truly was a defining moment in our season,” Garriott said of Hayes. “As sad as it was, it really united everyone. It turned them from a bunch of individuals into a team.”

Early in the season, the Saxons lacked the dedication Garriott said was necessary to win a section title. Wrestlers routinely failed to make weight and didn’t take their matches seriously.

Said Garriott: .”One of the strangest teams I’ve ever had.”

Add to the mix some injuries and other problems, and the losses began to pile up.

Before the Five Counties Invitational, one of the biggest tournaments of the season, Garriott suspended several of his top wrestlers for disciplinary reasons. That proved to be an eye-opener.

“To hold us out of Five Counties, yeah, it was a big deal,” said Mario Acosta, who won the Central Division’s 119-pound title. “We put Coach in a bad position and he showed us that when we did something wrong, there would be consequences.”

Garriott said his wrestlers knew they were good but believed they could win merely by showing up. That changed after the suspensions.

“We were getting cocky,” Brannon said. “We thought we could do what we wanted, but not going to Five Counties was a big thing.”

North Torrance has produced a top-eight finisher at the state championships each of the last four seasons. Last season, two Saxons, both seniors, placed among the top eight: Steve Juarez finished third at 215 pounds and Shawn Haratani was eighth at 130 pounds.

Garriott said he doubts his team would have won the dual meet championship without the unity inspired by Hayes. In the final matchup of the day, defending champion Rosemead won the first three matches, but North Torrance rallied for a 37-31 victory.

“Emotionally, I think the team [previously] would have just given up,” Garriott said. “We would have been like, ‘Oh well, we’ll just win the individuals.’

“But they showed me something there. That’s how much that old man meant to these guys.”

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Wrestling

What: Southern Section Masters Meet.

Where: Fountain Valley High, 17816 Bushard St., Fountain Valley.

When: Today, 1 p.m.-8 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Championship finals begin at 3 p.m.

At stake: The top eight finishers from among 30 wrestlers in each of 14 weight classes advance to the state championships, March 7-8 at University of the Pacific.

Admission: $7 for adults; $4 for students and children 13 and under.