The Paly wrestling team suffered a defeat on Friday night against the Gunn Titans, who are undefeated this year in the lower division.

The match kicked off at Gunn’s gym at 5:30 p.m. with junior varsity wrestling first. Gunn immediately took the upper hand. One after another, Paly contenders went down, and before long it seemed that the match had been won. However, junior Sam Debey managed to protect Paly’s name with his individual victory and did so even after being forced to wrestle in the weight class above his, moving from under 171 lbs. to under 189 lbs. "I won because I was so scared," DeBey said, "which forced me not to be overconfident." But despite the effort, the JV battle ended at 17 to 42, with Gunn in the lead.

After JV, the task of salvaging Viking pride fell to varsity, and for the better part of the matches it seemed they had risen to the occasion. Paly led the opposition by about 15 points, with an impressive performance from senior Fernando Shahpouri, under 125, who managed to get a pin in roughly 10 seconds. Unfortunately, Paly was forced to forfeit the wrestlers of the largest and smallest weight classes, under 275 and under 103, to seniors Adam Juratovac and Justin Reyes, respectively. So varsity too felt the bitterness of defeat at 26 to 38.

The victory did not surprise the undefeated Gunn wrestlers, most of whom looked rather smug before and after the match. "We expected to win, and we did, but I think we did a lot worse than we expected to," Gunn JV wrestler Philip Hsio said. "Some of us had a hard time focusing in the heat of battle."

Gunn is part of the lower division, while Paly is a member of the upper, so consequently the match had no bearing on official interscholastic standings. "The point of the meet is to get more experience," Paly head coach David Duran said. Before the meet, Gunn and Paly had gone head to head for five years.

"Paly was a great measuring stick," said head Gunn wrestling coach Chris Horpel. "I knew that they would point out any weaknesses we had, and they did… It’s great that we get to wrestle you guys. Three years ago the [wrestling] program came close to being closed… Now we know that we’re competitive in the upper division."

"We lost because we were overconfident," DeBey said. "There were all these rumors that Gunn sucked at sports. That they were part of a lower division was also part of it."

"I think there’s a chance we’ll see Paly at CCS or SCVALs," Gunn freshman wrestler Nic Giaccia said. If so, then it is unlikely that overconfidence will be an issue the next time they face Gunn.