Jerome's Gabriel Taboa, Times-News lower weight wrestler of the year, ran the table
BEN JONES bjones@magicvalley.com | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 10 months AGO
JEROME — Jerome High School placed third at the 2019 state wrestling championships and put three of its athletes — Fernando Luna, Jakob Murillo and Ezekial Williamson —on the first-place podium.
After all three of them graduated after last season, Gabriel Taboa, a junior this year, knew someone would have to pick up the slack.
“We lost a lot of our better wrestlers last year with our seniors, and there were a lot of them that were in the finals, so a lot of our leaders stepped out of the room,” Taboa said after a quad meet in January in Jerome.
Taboa’s performance across the 2019-20 season more than lived up to their example.
This year’s Times-News lower weight wrestler of the year finished the season undefeated (46-0) and took home the state championship at 126 pounds, the first title of his career.
Speaking after his championship win at the end of February, Taboa said putting together as successful of a season as he did was all about putting in the work.
“I thought for sure it was possible I just had to go get it,” he said. “I didn’t work hard enough last year, but I think I worked pretty hard this year to get this.”
He made a run to the 120 state finals as a sophomore but fell to Twin Falls’ Kase Mauger, who also finished his career in style this winter with his third consecutive state title.
Both Taboa and Mauger bumped up weight classes from a year ago, but Mauger went all the way up to 132, meaning they would not face each other in the finals again.
“I was just staying within myself and taking it one match at a time,” Taboa said of his state tournament approach. “I didn’t know who was going to be in the finals.”
He earned a pin in the first round, then picked up major decisions in the quarterfinals and semifinals.
Then, he ended up wrestling Lakeland’s Alex Edelblute and won in a 9-5 decision for the state championship.
“It was just keeping the pressure and keep working him,” he said of his methods in the final. “I was just trying to wear him down.”
Jerome ended up placing seventh as a team in Class 4A.
ARTICLES BY BEN JONES BJONES@MAGICVALLEY.COM
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