CHRISTIAN RAMOS (left) seems to be enjoying his match against American Canyon’s Jason Lucas.

Benicia High’s varsity wrestling team wasn’t about to give up its throne in the Solano County Athletic Conference.

The Panthers went into American Canyon on Wednesday and out-muscled the previously undefeated Wolves, 61-6, to wrap up their third consecutive SCAC team championship. Benicia (17-0, 5-0 SCAC) now advances to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II Team Duals this Saturday at Lincoln High School in Stockton. The Panthers won the Division II championship last year for the first time in school history.

“We never had any doubt,” Benicia head coach Japheth Aquino said of Wednesday’s showdown with American Canyon (15-2, 4-1 SCAC). “We just wanted to score as many points as we could as a team and finish the league season off strong. Now we’ll go into team Sections strong.”

“We knew we were going to win,” said senior Christian Ramos, who won his 120-pound match on a technical fall. “We were all pumped up to wrestle them.”

“They’re the only team in the league with a full lineup and we knew they were going to bring it,” added senior Joseph Hurst. “We were excited for it and it was great to win another league championship.”

American Canyon’s Gerald Belantes won an 8-4 decision at 106 pounds to get things started, but Benicia won the five matches to take control. Ryley Boutain put the Panthers in front to stay with a 14-3 win at 113 pounds, and Ramos won by technical fall in the third period after leading 13-0.

Lysander Mahilum (126) kept the points coming for Benicia with a 6-1 victory, and Alejandro Lanza (132) won on a tech fall up 13-1 in the second period to give the Panthers a commanding 23-3 lead.

American Canyon’s Jimmy Hoang (145) earned the last points of the night for the Wolves, putting a move on Benicia’s Mason Boutain with 13 seconds left to pull out a 5-4 decision.

“That was the best match of the night,” Aquino said. “Jimmy just hit it when it mattered.”

It was all Panthers the rest of the way. Senior Joseph Hurst (152) needed less than a minute to secure the first pin of the night, and Riley Pitkin followed with a tough 5-2 win. Brandon Ajari (182) led 4-0 when he pinned his opponent with three seconds left in the second period, and Steven Rohrer (220) needed only 1:20 to win by a pin.

Benicia’s Tyler Kay (171), Joseph Salt (195) and Imad Adel (275) each won by forfeit.

The Panthers will host the SCAC Individual Championships on Friday, Feb. 13.

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