The wrestling season seemed to be taking a turn for the better as the team headed into its CCS meet on Feb. 19 and 20 at Independence High. Team captain Allan Yen hoped to compete after recovering from a severe foot injury that kept him out of the majority of this season’s meets. In addition, sophomores Alfred Murabito and Nick Marshall and freshman Zach Hansen, all ranked in the top ten for their respective weight classes, were predicted to place top ten at CCS.

Unfortunately, the team’s momentum came to a sudden halt when Yen was not even given a chance to wrestle. His left foot, which was broken earlier in the season never fully healed and he was forced to miss CCS. The injury ended Yen’s hopes of competing the in the State Meet.

“I came back after five weeks out but my foot was still hurting,” said Yen. “I went and got an MRI and the doctors said it was still broken.”

The CCS squad now consisted of all underclassmen. Murabito, seeded sixth and coming off a first place finish the previous weekend at SCVAL finals, was thought to be a possible prospect for the state meet entering the tournament. Surprisingly, he was pinned by Kamyar Sharifi of Santa Clara, a wrestler he defeated twice during the regular season.

“All the wrestlers are so evenly matched,” said Murabito. “You may beat someone one day and they may beat you the next.”

Hansen and Marshall had disappointing meets as well. Hansen fell to Abraham Espinoza of Everett- Alvarez and Santosh Swamnathan of Harker. Marshall fell the eventual CCS champion Jorge Barajas of Saint Francis in the second round.

Other CCS qualifiers included sophomore Kyle Clark and freshman Anthony Billic. Clark lost in his second match to Kyle Venell of Prospect. Billic lost his first match to Hubert Tsai of Los Gatos.

“The team really missed [Yen] as a leader,” said Murabito. “We were really young and inexperienced as a team.”