Wrestling: Rio Hondo finishes 11th at West Hills Invitational

Rio Hondo College totaled 42 points to finish in 11th place out of 18 teams at the highly competitive West Hills College Invitational in Lemoore on Saturday. Leading the way for the Roadrunners were freshmen Andrew Ramos and Richard Sanjenis who both placed individually at the 197-pound division.

"This is considered one of the toughest tournaments in the state," said Rio Hondo head coach Mike Tellez.  "We had some guys lose in the round before placing. But we were happy with their performance with being such a young team."

Ramos, seeded No. 1 for the tourney at 197, closed with a second-place finish. Ramos earned a pin of Angel Barajas of Cerritos in his opening-round match, cruised to a 17-0 win over Jesus Zapata of Modesto in the quarterfinals, and took down Zackary Mitchell of Bakersfield 10-5 in the semifinals. But in the final, Ramos suffered a 12-6 upset loss to Westley Ruffer of Lassen.

Sanjenis won three matches on the day on his way to a sixth-place finish at the tournament. He won his opener 7-3 against Cory Welborn of Santa Rosa before falling to the consolation bracket with an 8-4 setback to No. 2-seeded Vincent Estus of San Joaquin Delta. In the lower bracket, Sanjenis edged Chad Thodos of Skyline 13-11 and beat Barajas of Cerritos 11-8. Sanjenis suffered a 10-6 loss to Mitchell of Bakersfield in the consolation semifinals and dropped an 8-5 decision to Efren Velez of East Los Angeles in the fifth-place match.

Cerritos won the team title with 163.5 points, followed by Sacramento City College in second at 132 points and Mt. San Antonio College in third with 118 points./

Rio Hondo returns to action on October 1 when the Roadrunners will compete at the Santa Ana College Tournament.