The SCL wrestling championships were held at Sonoma Valley on Saturday and it may not be one of the big attention grabbers in high school sports, but there are some pretty good athletes and hard-nose scrappers out there. It’s not a sport for the timid and conditioning is key.

Cody Howe is 38-0 at 132 pounds and has an excellent chance of winning at NCS next week and at state the week after. Cody is tall for his weight (5-foot-11) and appears to be in great physical condition. He’s patient and for every move he’s got a counter move.

Healdsburg’s Wesley Young won by a third round pin at 137 pounds and was quite impressive.

A couple of pretty good football players were crowned champions for Sonoma. Jake Powers, who was the Dragons’ quarterback last season won at 142 pounds and Nick Fedrick, who rushed for over 1,400 yards and was among Empire leaders in touchdowns, won by a first round pin at 162 pounds. Fedrick said he lost about 18 pounds to wrestle at 162, but you’d never know it by how strong he seems.

Sonoma heavyweight champ Sam Prohoroff also played football.

Saturday’s SCL title meet also included moving the final matches to the small gym at Sonoma, with its wooden floor, wooden backboards and hoops and stands overlooking the floor taken right out of the movie Hoosiers.

All the attention is on the center mat and the only light in the gym is over the mat, making the wrestlers the main focus. It’s a neat atmosphere and the wrestlers, who don’t receive that much fanfare, deserve the limelight for at least one day.

Sonoma edged Healdsburg to win its second consecutive SCL title.

Upstart wrestler of the day had to be Casa Grande’s Donovan Halpin of Casa Grande. Not expected to make the finals, he upset Matthew Tsarnas of Healdsburg and then upset defending champ Steven Murden of Sonoma, 5-1, to win the championship.

The only wrestling the general public seems to know about, is that fake stuff that’s more theatre than wrestling. This is not that.