SAC meets have Gulf fired up for championships

PHOTO AT LEFT: Bucs wrestlers after their win last weekend at Land o'Lakes. Photo by Mimi Mendonca.

This article appeared in the Tampa Tribune on Feb. 7, 2003.

By JOHN LAWTON

LAND O' LAKES - Any way you figure it, Gulf is the regular- season champion among the nine high school wrestling teams in Pasco County.

The Bucs took first place in both Sunshine Athletic Conference events.

On Jan. 11, Gulf was undefeated at 4-0 to win the conference dual-meet tournament at Ridgewood.

Last weekend, the Bucs repeated as champions in a tournament contested in the traditional individual-bracket method. Gulf amassed 212.5 points to outscore Zephyrhills, 205, and Ridgewood, 194 in ``The Swamp'' at Land O' Lakes.

Gulf coach Travis DeWalt had his team fired up for a top performance in the SAC Championships.

``I am forever reminding them that our best wrestling has to come in February,'' DeWalt said. ``Everything else is an essential building block.''

Winning titles for Gulf were Joey Pospisil (103), Bryan Ryder (135) and Fred Liriano (215). Claiming seconds were Steve Manzione (130), Andrew Mendonca (171) and Tim Tracy (189).

DeWalt said he regretted a questionable decision he made in Tracy's finals bout. With the score tied 0-0, DeWalt told his wrestler to ``defer'' a choice of position at the start of the second period. This gave Land O' Lakes' Scott Mays the chance to choose defense and score the first point.

Later, when the match reached the tiebreaker period, Mays was able to choose defense again because he scored the first point in the match. The result was a quick escape to earn Mays the title, 4-3.

``I wish that we could have that back,'' DeWalt said. ``I hate losing in double overtime. That seems like a lot of work to fall short.''