BY OBREY BROWN
ONTARIO Eastvale Roosevelt wrestler Nour Abdullatif won a Masters title Saturday, and the unbeaten heavyweight heads to next weekend’s state championships looking ready to redeem himself for last year’s third-place finish. Corona Santiago and Corona Centennial combined to qualify nine wrestlers for state. Five of those — Santiago’s Mike Longo, Freddie Garcia and Justin Thomas, plus Centennial’s Dean Parker and David Vanweems — earned Masters titles on Saturday. The Masters meet was held at the Citizens Business Bank Arena — normally, the home for the Ontario Reign hockey team — for the first time. The tournament provided the top-nine finishers from each weight division a spot in the state finals, which begin Friday at Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield. Abdullatif’s powerful Masters performance, which included a pin 38 seconds into the championship match against Yorba Linda’s Abe Ochoa, was almost typical of his season. Abdullatif lost at state last season to eventual 2013 champion Alex Redmond in a third fall pin but doesn’t have the luxury of getting revenge against the Los Alamitos wrestler, who was a senior. Noting room for improvement, Abdullatif kept working. “At the time,” said Abdullatif, now 35-0, “I thought I was being a serious wrestler. Maybe I wasn’t taking it seriously enough.” His coaches, Mike Cataline and Stephanie Cataline-Harper, might have driven him a little harder, he said. Santiago and Centennial showed off their wrestling strength but couldn’t overtake powerhouse Covina Northview in the team standings. Northview outpointed runner-up Santiago, 119 1/2-115 1/2, with Centennial in sixth. Centennial got a win from Parker, who beat No. 1 seed Vincent Parra (Covina Northview) in the 113-pound semifinals, then stopped No. 2 seed Alex Nunez (Alta Loma) in the final, 13-6. In what was the most exciting, even controversial, championship bout, the Huskies got a sudden-death triumph from Vanweems, whose one-point escape from Santa Maria Pioneer Valley’s Miguel Ruiz ended a 7:45 marathon, 7-6. Vanweems, who seemed to bang his leg as he went out of bounds, was awarded the bout-concluding point with 15 seconds left. Hemet’s Caleb Wilson might have pulled off one of the Masters’ biggest surprises on his way to the 152-pound final, a 6-4 triumph over Riverside King’s Nolan Kistler. “He beat me two times last year,” said Wilson. “I just needed to go out and just wrestle, not think about it.” Scoring a reversal, two escapes and a takedown, Wilson said, “He was trying to cradle me, but I just kept standing up.” Bloomington, didn’t get a single wrestler into the championship finals but sends five to state. Perennial powerhouse Temecula Valley qualified four. Lower and upper weight MVPs went to Zahid Valencia and Anthony Valencia, respectively, of Bellflower St. John Bosco. No wrestler was more powerful than Abdullatif, even though he wasn’t named the MVP of the upper weights. Roosevelt’s fourth seed scored a 10-4 openinground win, followed by back-to-back pins. His 8-1 semifinal triumph over Laguna Hills’ Jose Ballesteros lifted him into the final against Ochoa. Abdullatif attacked right away, and most of the 38 seconds he spent on the mat was on top of Ochoa, working him into pin position. “You don’t let a guy get comfortable,” said Abdullatif.