In attempting to rebound from back-to-back dual meet defeats to Fresno State and Colorado School of Mines on Senior Day last Friday, the SF State wrestling team entered the California Collegiate Wrestling Invitational looking for momentum to carry them into the Division II West Regionals and solidify their Division II national ranking.

SF State, which played host to the 29th annual tournament, was led by Donald Lockett and Pacifico Garcia’s tournament victories at their respective weight classes, propelling the Gators (1-11) to a fifth-place team finish.

“We had two champions here, and we haven’t had champions here in a while,” said head coach Lars Jensen.

Lockett, named the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler, went a perfect 3-0 on his way to winning the 141-pound title by defeating Cal State Bakersfield’s Roberto Vargas 7-4. Garcia also recorded a perfect 3-0 and defeated Bakersfield’s Anthony Baza 7-6 to win the 149-pound title.

“Right now, I pretty excited,” Garcia said. “I’m wrestling good at the right time.”

The Gators also had good results from Brian Watanabe (125-pound), Alex Butler (133-pound) and Jaime Alvarez (157-pound) with each finishing fourth in their weight classes.

“It was a really good tournament, especially for our younger guys in the lineup,” said assistant coach and former Gator wrestler Drew Dunbar. “It gives them confidence. They wrestled hard, and it’s a real good test of where we are.”

Fresno State finished as the tournament’s top team, tallying 161.5 total points. Bakersfield, last year’s top team, placed second with 146 points followed by Southern Oregon, Menlo College and SF State rounding out the top five. The Gators finished just one point behind Menlo.

“I’m pretty excited about the team’s performance,” Garcia said. “We have a lot of the California teams here. Having a good performance is critical.”

Garcia had some problems with his right leg during the tournament and had to stretch it out in his final two matches. The junior wrestler, ranked 6th in Division II at the 149-pound weight class, improves his record to 25-7 for the season.

Lockett, one of the Gators’ three seniors along with Alvarez and Scott Oda, wrestled their last home matches of their collegiate careers. Lockett, a liberal studies major, is ranked 2nd in Division II at the 141-pound weight class and pushed his record to 31-6 for the season.

The Gators needed this performance against the Division I schools including Fresno State, Bakersfield, UC Davis and Stanford at this point of the season. The tournament featured several Division I ranked wrestlers including Jim Medeiros (ranked 17th at 157 pounds), Shane Seibert (16th at 165), Marcio Botelho (8th at 197) and Clint Walbeck (16th at 285) all from Fresno State and Matt Sanchez (6th at 133) from Bakersfield. Sanchez, who placed eighth at last year’s Division I tournament, expects to be one of the favorites again this year. Out of the five, Seibert was the only one not to win his weight class placing third.

The team’s performance also marked much improvement from last year’s tournament. The team finished in eighth with no top finishers; Watanabe placed fourth at 125 pounds, Lockett third at 133, Garcia second at 141 and Oda fourth at 157.

“This is a tournament with a similar size as regionals," Jensen said. "We have one more dual meet. This is kind of a tune-up for regionals. What we’ll do is get ready for regionals after this.”

The Gators travel to Ashland, OR for their last dual meet of the season against Southern Oregon on Feb. 12, then head to Chadron, NE for regionals on Feb. 26.

“We got regionals in three weeks,” Garcia said, “so right now it’s a perfect opportunity to work on some stuff. This is the last opportunity to learn from our weaknesses cause here on out, it’s win or die, lose or go home.”