Spotlight: Marana Mountain View's Trey Waltz

February 12, 2015 by Andy Morales, AZPreps365


Trey Waltz. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365.com)

Marana Mountain View climbed from a 12th place finish in Division II in 2012 to a second place finish last year and they are taking aim at the state title this time around after defeating their rival Vail Cienega at sectionals 199 to 170.

The Section II tournament was held at Tucson Flowing Wells on Saturday, Feb. 7.  For Mountain View, Camden Garcia won the 120-pound division, Trey Waltz won the 132-division and Tyler Werch took home the 145-pound medal.

Cienega standouts Jason Ayala (113) and Ronald Brown (152) won their divisions and Andrew Vera is also expected to do well at state in the 195-division for the Bobcats.

But winning isn't everything for a team to do well at state. In order to finish high, a school must have wrestlers place high enough to score and Mountain View placed in every division at sectionals except for a few of the heavier ones:

106: Javier Ortiz took second to Tucson Catalina Foothills standout Jacob Davis.

113: Andrew Cota took third.

120: Garcia defeated Johnnie Luna of Tucson Sahuaro.

126: Ryan Henkel took fourth.

132: Waltz defeated Jace Manriquez of Cienega.

138: Frankie Lee took third.

145: Werch defeated Jesus Galaviz of Maricopa.

152: Colin Hall took fourth.

160: Quintin Jones took second to Javier Pro of Tucson Desert View.

170: Dallas Altamirano took second to Kenny Gay of Maricopa.

195: Louis Aguilar took fourth.

Werch (43-12) will be matched up against Jose Moreno (24-16) of Kingman in the first round of the state playoffs. 16 wrestlers will compete in each weight class for a shot at the state title and four straight victories is all it takes.

Garcia (38-8) is matched up against Greg Burgess (37-9) of Scottsdale Cactus Shadows and Waltz (38-7) will meet up with Corrye Jackson (28-14) of Peoria Liberty. Waltz has been chasing after Manriquez all year but finally pulled off a 3-2 decision at sectionals.

"I knew it would be a tough match with Jace but I knew I needed to wrestle tough," said Waltz. "The win felt good and will help me prepare for state where I know the competition gets tougher and any mistake can be a deciding factor. I need to be prepared for several tough matches," he added.

Waltz came in second place last year in the lower 126-division and Vera (45-5) came in second in the 195-division.