LEMOORE -- After several hundred matches had been wrestled at the Lemoore Bash, coach Kent Olson watched Larry Alai of Elk Grove and Red Bluff’s Forrest Garner square off in the heavyweight finals match of the two-day tournament with more interest than most.

That was because the Lemoore High coach knew something that the fans and 90 percent of the wrestlers didn’t �”� Alai needed to beat Garner in order for the Tigers to hold on to a one-point lead in the team scoring and edge Red Bluff for the championship.

But Garner picked up the pin in the second round and the Tigers finished five points behind Red Bluff (240 points) and into second place on Saturday at the Lemoore High Event Center.

“We did fairly well. I thought we needed about 230 points to win this thing and we got that, but it looks like we needed more than that,” Olson said. “We had some kids that didn’t wrestle as well as they should have, but we had some other guys surprise us. We are wrestling pretty well at this point of the season, but we have a lot of improving to do over the next few weeks.”

The Tigers had four wrestlers make the finals, but only one scored points and came away with one title.

Brandon Rocha lived up to his No. 1 seed, knocking off Bishop Amat’s Andrew Ortega 2-1 in double overtime.

“We knew this was going to be a tough match. We wrestled this kid last year at state to advance to the second day and it was a helluva match with Brandon winning in four overtimes I believe,” Olson said. “Brandon is on right now and we just need to work on a few things.”

Rocha and Ortega exchanged escapes in the second and third rounds, respectively and then wrestled to a scoreless 1-minute over time period.

“I was kind of nervous going into the final,” Rocha said. “I knew that this was going to be a tough match again. Last year, I beat him in a close match at state.”

Rocha took the lead, escaping during the second overtime and then road out Ortega to finish the match.

“I thought it was a pretty tough tournament for me,” Rocha said. “There was some pretty tough matches and some were closer than I wanted.”

Lemoore’s Alex and Julian Perez also made the finals, but both were pinned by Northview wrestlers.

Alex Perez lost by fall in 3:01 at 119 to Anthony Jaramillo and Julian Perez was pinned in 28 seconds in the 130-pound finale by Frank Martinez.

Sophomore Nick Sierra also was in the finals, but fell to Oakdale’s Trevor Machado-Ching by major decision 14-3. Machado-Ching is a 2005 state champion at 103 pounds and entered the tournament ranked No. 1 in the state at 145 pounds.

“This is the grind right now. We are getting to that point in the season where if our guys can stay consistent, than they’re going to do well come March,” Olson said.

Freshman 103 pounder Silverio Esparza finished fifth for the Tigers, A.J. Jaramillo was fifth at 112, James Currier was fourth at 145, Vincent Rubio was third at 152, Stephen Martinez was fourth at 189 and heavyweight Loren Baize was seventh.

Hanford West’s Jonathan Garcia was the only wrestler from Hanford to place, finishing eighth at 215 pounds.

Northview was third in team scoring with 198 points followed by Oakdale (139) and College Park (135). Hanford West placed 38th with 44 points. Hanford was 52nd with 21 points.