Manassas Park High Wrestlers Place Third in States

Manassas Park High School placed in the top three at the state wrestling meets on Saturday at the Salem Civic Center in Salem, Va. 

The team placed third behind Grundy and Strasburg High Schools, MPHS Athletic Director Dan Forgas said. 

"We ended up losing the team title by 19 points.  I thought we wrestled really well with the six kids we had," said Mark Payne, Manassas Park High wrestling coach. 

The cougars season record wasn't immediately available.

All six of the Manassas Park wrestlers placed individually in the meet. Here are their rankings:

120-pound Gilbert Rodriguez placed second
126-pound Zach Trueting placed second
132-pound Fabian Rodriguez placed third
160-pound  Isaiah Baker placed first
220-pound Corey Jenkins placed first
285-pound Enrique Torres placed sixth

"Enrique (Torres) suffered a tough loss to injury in the semifinals.  He was forced to forfeit all the way back to 6th place.  We weren't as far off the lead as it appears.  If Enrique would have not gotten injured and would have been able to win his semifinals, that would have cut the lead down to 8 points.  Enrique wrestled his hardest though and can't feel responsible for having an unpreventable injury," the coach said.

Payne added that Fabian Rodriguez lost a tough match in the quarterfinals and wrestled all the way through the wrestle backs to take third place. 

"I was really impressed with his (Rodriguez's) toughness," Payne said. 

"Gilbert (Rodriguez) and Zach (Treuting) had incredible tournaments and fell just short of a title.  They should be very proud of themselves."

 After looking at the top two teams, the Cougars just didn't have the depth to win this year, Payne added.

 "We had some unfortunate things that happened to us a week ago that really cost us the state tournament this week," he said. "It's a good learning experience for us and I hope we can adjust and not repeat the same mistakes next year."

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