By Eric Terrazas, SGVN
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PICO RIVERA – Santa Fe High School’s wrestling team put together an impressive day at Saturday’s Del Rio League finals at El Rancho.

Seven wrestlers captured league crowns for the Chiefs, who qualified 12 participants for the CIF-Southern Section Northern Division Preliminaries that are scheduled for Feb. 15-16 at Moorpark High.

Andrew Ponce, Nico Sanchez, Jesus Baeza, Alec Cabral, Eric Garcia, John Robles and Anthony Flores emerged as Santa Fe’s first-place finishers.

California, which won the league dual meet crown with a 5-0 record, had three league champions in Elias Mercado, Adrian Chavez and Nate Espinoza. The Condors qualified 12 wrestlers to the Northern Division prelims.

Saturday’s league finals turned out to be a redemption of sorts for Santa Fe, which took second place in league at 4-1. The Chiefs lost 32-22 to the Condors last month in a dual meet.

“Our boys came out to wrestle together,” Santa Fe coach Sal Garcia said. “They kind of wanted to make a statement and they did.

“We qualified 12 to the CIF (prelims). That’s pretty good for a team just having two guys returning from last year’s varsity team. We wrestled really well. The boys stepped up to the challenge.

“Overall, it was a very good day.”

California, in addition to its three winners, produced nine second-place finishers.