Pressure is still on wrestling teams

There aren’t too many high school sports where a league championship is decided by each team in the league playing each other team just once.

Track and swimming are two of them. But in those leagues, there is no head-to-head team competition in CIF, so the league title carries little significance compared to how many you qualify for CIF.

In wrestling however, teams face each other just once, and there is also a dual-meet championship. So with only five league matches, you don’t get a second chance against the same team.

There was an air of that on Thursday for Alta Loma’s 37-21 wrestling victory over Los Osos. Fans were intense, knowing that a Baseline League championship could be on the line, in each teams’ second league match.

Now, that’s frequently the case in other leagues, where there are usually two clear-cut top teams in the league.

That’s not true in the Baseline League, where coach Alta Loma coach Tom Guenther knows that Rancho Cucamonga and Upland are still on the schedule and both will provide challenging roadblocks to a league title. Alta Loma may prove to be the best in the league, but no one’s conceding anything yet.