By Ed Piper
In La Jolla's tri-meet against Clairemont and Canyon Hills at home Wed., Feb. 2, Caden Kestler at 138 pounds and Gus Rinaldi at 152 pounds pinned their opponents from Clairemont in bright spots from the first half of the meet.
Against the Chieftains, Kestler, fresh off his outstanding second place in the Willie Jones City Conference Tournament Sat., Jan. 29, built up a 5-0 lead before finally achieving the fall (wrestling's term for a pin) with two seconds left in the first period. (High school wrestlers usually wrestle three two-minute periods during a match.)
"It was frustrating. I beat that guy (who he lost to in the championship bout) in another match," said Kestler, always forthright, always honest, when asked about Saturday's City Conference result.
He just came back to the LJHS team two weeks ago due to injury, so to achieve a second at City Conference is a significant achievement, here in his junior year. Imagine, much of Caden's high school career has been affected by the COVID situation.
In the other highlight Wednesday, Rinaldi--serenaded as "Gus", short for his full first name, Gustavo--had to endure almost three full periods before pinning Alan Felkes of Clairemont. Neither Gus nor Felkes could score a point in a struggle for the upper hand during the first period.
Finally, Rinaldi scored a point in the second period to lead 1-0.
His pin came with 10 seconds left in the third period. Time of pin on the statistics sheet: 5:50 (two minutes for period one, two for period two, then 1:50 for the time he had to wrestle during the third period).
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