San Diego Wrestling Section has not produced a Wrestling Masters Champion since 2015.

This is in part because of a lack of middle school program. Cuts in transportation and extracurricular budgets has made it difficult to compete with the better funded schools in other districts like Poway and Rancho Bernardo, but that is changing.

This year Patrick Henry High School qualified seven wrestlers for Masters Tournament (placed top eight at CIF Championships). Of those, two wrestlers qualified for the State Championships, something that has not occurred since 2006. Only the top four wrestlers in San Diego in their weight class qualify for the state championships.

Ethan Vinoray was the first Patrick Henry freshman to qualify for the tournament while his brother Elijah (who is committing to Clackamas Junior College in Oregon with the nation’s top JC program) was a match away from placing, ending up top 15 in the state after two wins and two losses. Elijah had a unique year after suffering a neck breaking injury last year. He came back to place first in League, first in CIF, first at Masters and was voted as the MVP for the entire Western League. Elijah is the first Masters Champion in Patrick Henry history since the creation of the all-San Diego tournament.

Five Patriots also made the all-academic team with GPA over 3.0 including Masters qualifier Alex Adler, League Champion and Masters qualifier Aedyn Jamison, Eriksson Kylstad, Jad Carruthers and Francisco Saroldi- Gonzalez.

In other news, while San Diego Unified is considering adding wrestling to the middle school sports, San Carlos has not waited. Lewis and Pershing schools teamed up to create their own wrestling program called Kumeyaay Trails Wrestling Club. Pershing Math teacher Rob Bowman and US Marine and Patrick Henry Alumni Calvin Meyers coach sixteen boys and girls twice a week at the Pershing Gym and Lewis Cafeteria. On Mondays and Fridays the Middle Schoolers learn wrestling moves and improve their wrestling abilities. Wrestlers span grades six and eight and weight classes from 70lb to 180. They plan to continue to improve their skills this summer and hopefully compete for Lewis and Pershing once the Middle School program is established.

Patrick Henry will also host a first San Diego wrestling camp August 7-11.

The camp will feature Olympic Women’s Coach and world silver medalist Afsoon Johnston, All-American Mateo Almos, Patrick Henry and Palomar College alumni Michael Joseph and Palomar College Wrestling Coach Tim Box.

For more information, email: [email protected].