The Santa Rosa Junior College Bear Cubs surpassed expectations tying Chabot College 24-24 on Oct. 3, with strong showings from Captains Richard Morris and Gregg Robinson. The Bear Cubs were down wins early against the more experienced Chabot but never gave up, battling back to secure the impressive tie.
The Bear Cubs consist of a lot of young wrestlers entering their first year at the SRJC. It was important for the sophomore captains to lead by example– And boy did they.
Robinson put on a show in his duel matchup against Elijah Johnson at 174 pounds.
After narrowly missing out on securing the pin in the opening round, Robinson was almost taken down by Johnson in the second round, but in a dramatic turn of events Robinson reversed the take down, slamming Johnson to the ground with a powerful throw and transition to top control to secure the pin and win the scrap.
“Greg is going into his third year and maturing at 20-years-old. He has so much heart, “said coach Jake Fitzpatrick. “I’m glad he got to put on a show in front of his family who made the trip from Fresno to see him hit the mats.”
“He went for the shot, and I was able to get my foot down and it was over from there for him,” Robinson said.
After picking up a tournament victory 19-9 over Cesena a few weeks prior in Sacramento, Richard Morris at 141 pounds, was again cruising to a blowout decision win, picking up huge takedowns in the first and second rounds until Cesena put together an epic comeback with one minute to go in the third round. Cesena secured a takedown and a fall, pulling the match to 12-10 with 20 seconds to go, but Morris managed to defend the takedown at the end and grit the victory out.
“I started out great. I felt good going into the match because I because I already saw what he had in Sacramento,” Morris said. “I got away from my game-plan and didn’t continue to circle and wrestle and he was able to catch me there at the end but my preparation had me ready and I was able to weather the storm there,” said Morris.
Remarkably Morris had to drop 10 pounds to make weight for the match an hour before weigh-ins.
“It was his first time dropping weight and doing a weigh-in a couple hours before a match; he performed excellent,” Fitzpatrick said. “He got a little flat at the end, but we see Morris at 141, and we plan on bumping him up to 149.”
Oct.3 kicked off SRJC’s 50th year in wrestling and coach Fitzpatrick’s 30th year as the head coach.
The Bear Cubs’ next meet is at 7 p.m. Oct. 8 against Skyline College in Tauzer Gymnasium.
