Tough Local Tournament Early in the Season

The 22nd Annual Bianchini Wrestling Tournament was hosted this weekend by Cupertino High School. It consisted of 32 teams mostly from within the Central Coast Section. It has a reputation of bringing the best within our section together early in the season. That’s why our coaches determined it to be the tournament of choice for the Warrior's Varsity wrestlers this weekend. “We need to find out where we stand now” they said. With double day practices over the holidays, all 6 Valley wrestlers came well prepared for this event. It could prove to be our toughest tournament to date with featured power house wrestling schools Gilroy, Los Gatos and Saint Francis to name a few in the house. It did prove to be just that. However what they didn’t realize is that Valley had it own surprises in the house.

Ryan Gardner a senior at VCHS is not new to wrestling. He proved that last year by winning the WCAL title. That’s probably why he came into the tournament being seeded #1. Ryan didn’t let anyone down as he wrestled his way into the finals in the 215 lb weight class and won by a small margin to secure the championship first place title.

Adam Crawley a 135 lb. wrestler also secured a 5th place finish by avenging an opponent who earlier in the tournament beat him. Adam met up with him again and like a technician performed a clinic in the match by executing move after move. It was beautiful.

Chris Tozer was added to the Varsity squad earlier in the week because of his success in JV tournaments. It was no different here. Chris proved to be varsity worthy by going 3-2 and finishing 4th in the Hvy Wt weight class.

Charlie Galaviz just fell short of making it into the finals in the 160 lb weight class by losing to a tough Salinas wrestler. However Charlie came back in the semis and defeated the #1 seed in the tournament from Cupertino High School and finished 3rd overall.

Chris Van Elderen whom normally wrestles 140’s did not place however he was in most of his matches. He opted to move up one weight class this tournament to 145’s & found the competition pretty stiff (bumping up a weight class often means stronger opponents).

Peipe James is another Valley wrestler known to be a major threat now in our CCS. He has established himself well in the 189 lb division this year. Peipe went on to meet another top 3 seed wrestler in our CCS from Saint Francis in the finals. Peipe barely lost his finals match and finished 2nd.

Please these links for the full results direct from the San Jose Mercury News or California Wrestler Newsletter.