UPDATE, 11:31 a.m. Saturday: Be sure to check out the Day 2 live blog at this link: http://people.bakersfield.c...

UPDATE, 11:27 p.m.: So, it's been five hours, and I haven't blogged. I'm disgusted with myself. I promise I'll do better tomorrow. The problem was that we were insanely busy with stories for multiple newspapers during the quarterfinals. But there were some doozy matchups.

Here are the semifinal matchups:

103—Alex Cisneros, Selma, vs. Vince Moita, Concord-De La Salle; Daniel Gaytan, Clovis, vs. Stevan Knoblauch, Clovis West
112—Estevan Cabanas, Moreno Valley-Canyon Springs, vs. Zach Zimmer, Clovis West; Vince Rodriguez, Clovis North, vs. Jesse Delgado, Gilroy
119—Steven Salinas, Covina-Northview, vs. Fabian Garcia, Turlock; Terry Allen, Vallejo-Hogan, vs. David Klingsheim, Brentwood-Liberty
125—Clinton McAlester, Clovis, vs. Martin Gonzalez, Gilroy; Brandon Rocha, Lemoore, vs. Damien Arredondo, Buchanan
130—Daniel Horcasitas, Riverside-Martin Luther King, vs. Henry Yorba, Poway; Frank Martinez, Covina-Northview, vs. Jose Mendoza, Selma
135—Mitch Newcomer, Laguna Hills, vs. Conrad Snell, Poway; Seth Hicks, Bakersfield-Centennial, vs. Shervin Iraniha, Spring Valley-Monte Vista
140—Vlad Dombrovskyy, Sacramento-Natomas, vs. Cody Rodebaugh, San Lorenzo Valley; Javier Sanchez, Ridgeview, vs. Nicholas Sierra, Lemoore
145-- Cody Bollinger, Sultana vs. Alex Rodriguez, Fresno-Washington; Scott Sakaguchi, Clovis vs. Matt Melendrez, California
152 -- Martin Fabbian, Clovis-Buchanan vs. T.J. Belton, Modesto-Central Catholic; Chris Urquizo, Merced vs. Tigran Adzhemyan, Santa Ana-Calvary Chapel
160 -- Stephen West, Clovis-Buchanan vs. Jonathan Urango, Camarillo; James Cook, Madera vs. Patrick Martinez, Temecula Valley
171 -- Morgan McIntosh, Santa Ana-Calvary Chapel vs, Dwight Flores, Tulare Union; Jordan Williams, El Dorado vs. Jesse Hellinger, Winters
189 -- J.T. Felix, Corona-Centennial vs. Ian Daube, Poway; Jesus Chavez, River Valley vs. Nikolai Crouch, Santa Fe

215 -- Nick Pica, Concorde vs. Austin Morehead, Sutter; Drew Meulman, St. Francis vs. Josh Wood, Modoc

285 -- Roger McCovey, Del Norte, vs. Josh Lee, Martin Luther King; Kyle Papendorf, Clovis-Buchanan, vs. Angel Posadas, Foothill

Sorry about that funky font; I copied it from the newspaper. 

The team scores look like this, with number of semifinalists in parentheses:

1. Poway 89.5 (3)
2. Clovis-Buchanan 85.5 (4)
3. Clovis 85 (3)
4. Selma 66.5 (2)
5. Bakersfield 48 (0!)
6. Modesto-Central Catholic 47 (1)
7. Clovis West 44.5 (2)
8. Santa Ana-Calvary Chapel 44 (2)
9. Lemoore 41.5 (2)
Covina-Northview 41.5 (2)

I'm beat, so I'll leave it at that for tonight. We'll see you bright and early at 9 a.m. for a Cinderella round of consolation (win, you place and lose, you're done) followed in progress by semifinals at 9:30. I'm excited, and I'll blog more too.

UPDATE, 6:34 p.m.: A big upset at 189 pounds from back in the round of 16: No. 2-ranked Ryan Loder of Granite Hills goes down 6-5 to Nikolai Crouch of Santa Fe. Crouch was ranked sixth. Folks, that's what a tough draw will do to you.
From here in the consolations, those in the Central Section will recognize this one as an upset — Clovis' Sonny Cervantes, who only got into this tournament because of an eighth-place exemption, beats Porterville's Shane Yacuta, who was second in the section. He'll move on and is now just two wins away from placing in the top eight at state. Also big team point for the Cougars. 

UPDATE, 6:18 p.m.: As we work through this round of consolation (Clovis West's Chris Martinez was another upset victim I didn't catch last round, but he's won), here's a team scores update:

1. Poway 62
2. Clovis 61 (how's that for close?)
3. Buchanan 57.5
4. Selma 47.5
5. Bakersfield 41
6. Central Catholic 38
7. Clovis West 32.5
8. Lemoore 30.5
9. Calvary Chapel 29
10. Gilroy 28

UPDATE, 5:56 p.m.: Some heavyweight winners that I caught: Kyle Papendorf of Buchanan, Loren Baize of Lemoore, Jose Lopez of John Glenn (1-0 over East's Tony Hernandez), and Foothill's Angel Posadas (7-4 over Center's Daniel Gusev.)
Now consolation round 3 has begun.

UPDATE, 5:42 pm.: This has been a third round more or less devoid of the upsets we saw in the first two. The good side of that is that it's setting up some brilliant quarterfinal matchups. Unfortunately, I need to apologize in advance because the updates will be few and far between tonight for a while because I'll need to work on my daily newspaper responsibilities. But I'll do my best.
One minor upset, at least by the state rankings, was at 145, where California's Matt Melendrez  dominated Folsom's Jordan Hart 14-2. Melendrez was ranked eighth and Hart fourth.
And here's a bigger upset and another coup for Buchanan. At 152 pounds, Martin Fabbian beats De La Salle's Tyler Sheridan 4-2 to advance to the quarters. Sheridan was ranked third in the state, the highest rank to go down thus far. That means the top half of the 152 bracket has a quarterfinal between two unrankeds, Fabbian and Jake Poliakoff of Poway (big team points at stake there, too) and the other has No. 2 T.J. Belton of Central Catholic against No. 6 Bryce Hammond of Bakersfield. That's big team points at stake too, with all four teams in title contention.
Right in front of us now is an interesting 215 match where Cesar Chavez's Noel Gomez is giving No. 5 Andrew Hudson of Redlands East Valley a run. Hudson has a second-period escape for a 1-0 lead. Both wrestlers have had chances for takedowns, but it remains 1-0 through two periods. Gomez out from bottom for a 1-1 tie. Hudson gets a takedown, Gomez gets up and now quickly the unranked Gomez has a takedown near the outside of the circle! He leads 4-3 with 33 seconds left. An upset brewing here. I believe there was a stalling warning on Gomez, 23 seconds left.  And now Hudson gets out to tie it. Gomez has to be careful with that warning hanging over his head. We're going to go to OT. Now a stalling call on Hudson, so that's evened up. Gomez was definitely the aggressor in OT, but neither gets a takedown and it's double OT. Hudson down first. He gets out with about 10 seconds left. Now Gomez out with 12 left. It's 5-5 and we could be headed for a tiebreaker. Hudson scored first in the match, so he has choice and will go down. He has 30 seconds to get out and win the match. And Gomez briefly had a headlock, but Hudson pulls his head back and gets around for a reversal and the 7-5, triple-OT win.
Meanwhile, Gomez's workout partner for the week, Bakersfield's Brian Schoene is off to a slow start. giving up a takedown to George Dunlap of Soquel. He's down 2-1 after one. Schoene gets an escape and a takedown in round 2, though, and has control of the match again. He's now up 9-2 and can look forward to a quarterfinal with St. Francis' Drew Meulman.

UPDATE, 4:47 p.m.: I'm having some problems getting comments to post, but here's the answer to a couple of questions below — Clovis West's Zach Zimmer won 4-0 at 112 pounds to advance to the quarterfinals, and the team scores after two championship rounds/one consolation round look like this:
1. Poway 46
2. Clovis 45
3. Buchanan 38
4. Selma 34
5. Bakersfield 26.5
6. Clovis West 25.5
7. Central Catholic 23
8. Lemoore 22.5
9. SA-Calvary Chapel 22
10. Gilroy 21

Pins at 152 pounds for Bakersfield's Bryce Hammond and Central Catholic's T.J. Belton, setting up a juicy quarterfinal tonight.

UPDATE, 4:28 p.m.: A near-upset for Clovis High that would have been huge. Alec Dieter at 135  pounds led Kalin Goodsite of ML King 4-3 late in the match but surrendered a takedown with about 10 seconds left. Goodsite, ranked fourth in the state, hung on to win 5-4.
Meanwhile, the Central Section is flexing its muscle at 140. Bakersfield's Jonah Cruz advanced to the quarterfinals with a technical fall of Temecula Valley's Marco Decaro, and Ridgeview's Javier Sanchez is up 8-4 in the third period on Craig Simons of Orland. That doesn't even account for Lemoore's Nicholas Sierra, who's scoreless early in his match and in a long blood-time delay. Matt Negrete of Buchanan already took out No. 4 Kyle West, but now Negrete is down 5-3 in the third period to Vista's Josh Hotta. Sanchez has hung on for a 10-5 win. Still scoreless for Sierra, and Negrete is now down 10-3 after Hotta gets a takedown to the back for five points. Looks like Hotta will face Sanchez in tonight's quarterfinals.
If you're keeping an eye on Kern County, Bakersfield's Timmy Box and Liberty's Greg Kapler both won their consolation matches easily. BHS 145-pounder Adam Fierro is up 2-0 early in his third-round match. It's now 4-0 for Fierro after a tilt, so it looks like another Driller into the quarters with Bryce Hammond, Jose Ramirez and Brian Schoene still to come.

UPDATE, 4:10 p.m.: Keeping an eye now on Centennial's Seth Hicks at 135 pounds, who's top-ranked in the state but has a tought match in the round of 16, against sixth-ranked Corey Johnson of Del Oro. A slow first period results in a scoreless tie, and now the undefeated Hicks to go on top. Hicks is doing a fine job riding through the first minute of the second, but now Johnson is out and has a 1-0 lead. Now Hicks with a beautiful fireman's shot and he has two near the edge of the circle. That's a 2-1 lead with 25 seconds to go in the second. He rides out and gets a reversal in the third period for a 4-1 lead and he hangs on by that score.

UPDATE, 3:42 p.m.: I'm a bit stuck following some of Kern County wrestlers, so I'm not keeping up with all of the state's best. But David Klingsheim has a 6-1 lead entering the third period. Martin Gonzalez of Gilroy, meanwhile, is wrestling through his tough draw, battling with Selma's Nick Pena, who's eighth in the state. A scoreless first period and an escape for Gonzalez to start period 2 makes it 1-0. Klingsheim won, I believe 8-2. As for Pena and Gonzalez, they've been tied up a lot in neutral position. Two or three stalemates already. Now it's the end of the second. Pena chooses down, Gonzalez gives him neutral for a point and a 1-1 tie. Now some blood time. Nearly a takedown for Gonzalez, but they're out of bounds with less than a minute left. Could be headed for overtime. This one is a doozy. Locked up in wizzers, and now Gonzlez has the takedown! 30 ticks left. Escape for Pena, but he needs a takedown. He won't get it, and Gonzalez survives 3-2.

UPDATE, 3:20 p.m.: Didn't see any upsets in the 103 championship round. Vince Moita joined Alex Cisneros, Stevan Knoblauch, Daniel Gaytan (who had a tough match, 8-5) and Kevin Mai in the second round. On to 112, where Jesse Delgado had an easy win for Gilroy, getting a pin in the first period against Poway's Ryan Nasseri. Clovis North's Vince Rodriguez is up 2-1 in the second period, and East's Marc Collier has a 4-2 lead to start the third against Lawrence Blanco of James Logan.
There's a pin for for Rodriguez at 3:45. Estevan Cabanas of Canyon Springs also had an easy win , I believe 13-4. With Alfonso Osuna out of that quarter, there's a clear path to the semis for Cabanas, though Selma's Diego Quintana will present a quarterfinal challenge (I didn't see if Quintana won in the round of 16). Collier has held on 4-2 for his second straight quarterfinal berth. Let's see if it goes better than last year, when the Blade lost two in a row from this point and didn't place.

UPDATE, 2:58 p.m.: Quickly into the championship third round, which starts with a bang for Selma's Alex Cisneros, the No. 1-ranked Bear (Selma is not the Tigers, like I said earlier, thanks for that correction) at 103. He pinned Michael Nolasco of El Modena in the first period, then calmly stood up, shook hands and signed his bout sheet. This guy is the real deal. He's into the quarterfinals and won't faced a ranked wrestler until at least the semifinals (could be Vince Moita of De La Salle).

UPDATE, 2:49 p.m.: Into 189 and 215 pounds in the first consolation round here. We're probably about 20 minutes away from California's Sweet 16. The Californian's trusty correspondent Steve Lynch checks in with these numbers: Fifteen of The California Wrestler's top eight ranked wrestlers have either been eliminated or knocked to the consolation bracket. Of those, none are from 189, 215 or heavyweight, and just four are from 145 or above. Many of the upsets have happened at lower weights.
None of the top three wrestlers at any weight have lost. Two No. 4's we've mentioned before, Alfonso Osuna of Brawley at 112, and Kyle West of Oak Ridge, have lost. Osuna also lost his first consolation match and has been eliminated. West, second at state last year, got a pin and is still wrestling for third.
As for Kern County, just three wrestlers out of 26 qualifiers are out.

UPDATE, 2:09 p.m.: A quick team score update after the first full round is complete — the Central Section is dominating.
Defending champion Clovis, helped by six pins, is in the top spot with 42 points, followed by Poway at 39, Buchanan at 38, Selma at 31, Bakersfield at 26.5, Clovis West at 25.5 and Lemoore at 22.5. That's six of the top seven from the Central Valley.
About halfway through the first round of consolations here, but I have to admit I've been doing some other work and haven't kept a really close eye on the goings-on for the past 15 minutes or so.

UPDATE, 1:49 p.m.: We're into consolation round 1. A reminder that the first period in all consolation matches is just one minute. The other two periods are still two.
Some figures on the 26 Kern County qualifiers: Fourteen of them are through to the round of 16, a pretty good percentage that includes all three East qualifiers, both Foothill qualifiers and five of the seven Bakersfield entries. Really the only disappointment for the Drillers so far is Timmy Box's loss at 130 pounds, but if he had won, he'd have ran into No. 1 Henry Yorba of Poway anyway. So BHS is taking care of business thus far.
Two additional notes: Brawley's Alfonso Osuna, ranked fourth in the state, lost his first match to Diego Quintana of Selma and is now down 7-3 in his consolation match. I'm sitting next to a reporter from the San Diego Union-Tribune who says he did a feature on Osuna last night, and he says it's the old U-T jinx at work.
Meanwhile, Jeshua Aveno of Santa Teresa in San Jose is another inspirational story. He's legally blind and made it to state, though he lost his first match and is down 5-0 to Dylan Barrales of Temecula Valley in the consolations. Still, congrats to Jeshua for making it this far.
Another disappointment for BHS — Natrelle Demison lost his consolation match, 5-2 to Andrew Schulte of Santa Ana-Calvary Chapel. That's a bad loss for Demison, who I think made the freshman mistake of letting a tough first loss carry over. BHS loses a guy within two matches they thought had a legit shot at placing.
Also, an upset I missed earlier — Kyle West of Oak Ridge, fourth in the state and a second-place finisher last year — was upset by Buchanan's Kyle Negrete, 8-5 in the first round. Nice win for Buchanan, and now a chance for Negrete to go to the quarterfinals or further.

UPDATE, 1:32 p.m.: Drew Meulman of St. Francis and Brian Schoene of Bakersfield are on a collision course for the 215 pound quarterfinals, and both had little trouble with their first match. Meulman won by pin, Schoene by a 5-1 decision over Ponderosa's Paul Buchanan. Meulman beat Schoene in the finals of both the Doc Buchanan and the Five Counties, so that's a finals-caliber match in the quarters if both wrestlers make it.
The heavyweights are going at it now ,with the first consolation round to follow in the next few minutes. At heavyweight, the Central Section is busy, with Foothill's Angel Posadas dispatching La Sierra's Dillion Sanderson with a first-period pin, and Tony Hernandez of East up 2-0 on El Camino's Zach Pringle. Lemoore's Loren Baize is tied 1-1 and headed to overtime with Juan Lucero of L.A.-Bell. A couple of other LA guys have already won matches, so it's good to see a traditionally weak section do well. Not going to happen for Lucero, though; Baize takes him down and adds the pin for good measure at 6:26.
Hernandez is now up 5-0, and he'll likely move on to face John Glenn's Jose Lopez, though Lopez is nursing a 3-0 lead on Dimitrius Berry of Vallejo.

UPDATE, 1:11 p.m.: Sorry for the delay. We had more technical difficulties there, but I'm promised that those are done with. I certainly hope so, considering this is one of Rabobank's biggest weekends and the wireless internet is crucial.
Anyway, a couple of upsets — Taylor Hodel of Vacaville was upset 6-5 by Rancho Cucamonga's Joey Lemond at 145. Hodel was ranked fifth in the state. Also, Buchanan's Jake Gingold lost an overtime match at 189 to Derrick Hawkins of Santiago. Hawkins' takedown in overtime produced the loudest roar of the day so far (part of it produced by rival Clovis fans happy about Buchanan's loss, no doubt).

UPDATE, 12:03 p.m.: A pin for Poway by 140-pounder Rio Gallegos over Vacaville's Garrett Walton. I have no way to prove this, but it seems like Poway has done pretty well thus far, winning matches where it should and maybe a few where you wouldn't expect it. That's what they need if they're going to compete for their team title, at long last.
Two more Bakersfield studs, Jonah Cruz of BHS and Javier Sanchez of Ridgeview, are wrestling on adjacent mats. Both have a 4-2 edge in the third period, now 6-2 for Sanchez, who is wrestling the No. 8 rank, Kyle Chene of Irvine. Nice performance from Sanchez. Cruz hangs on 4-2 in a tougher-than-expected match. Sanchez was actually in the second period, so he and Chene are still battling. 10-6 for the Ridgeview wrestler now, who's dominating in neutral position. Now 12-6, and he'll win going away.

UPDATE, 11:45 a.m.: Two of Bakersfield's best pound-for-pound wrestlers, undefeated Seth Hicks of Centennial and Greg Kapler of Liberty, are going at it on mats right next to each other. Hicks, ranked first in the state, is a minute into his match with a takedown and some nearfall already against Jonathan Ojeda of Etna. Kapler, to no one's sruprise, is in a scramble but he ended up getting taken down to his back. No. 6 Corey Johnson of Vacaville is up 5-0 to start the second period. Same thing happened, and it's 10-0. Johnson has caught Kapler in a tilt twice now, and a guy who had lost just once until a couple of weeks ago is headed to the consolation bracket. Folks, this is the state tournament. No easy matches.

UPDATE, 11:30 a.m.: From the overkill department, the CIF is already announcing team scores. Probably no need to read into this yet, considering 60 percent of wrestlers didn't even have first round matches, but Santa Ana-Calvary Chapel leads the standings with ... 10 whole points!!! That's followed by Clovis West and Gilroy with 8 each and Lemoore with 7.5. Come on people. Let's at least wait until everyone's wrestled before we get going here.

A few upsets at 103—MIchael Nolasco, El Modena, over MIchael Lim, El Camino; Logan Lazaro, Lincoln, over Daniel Romero, Carlsbad; Adrian Rodriguez, Buchanan, over Matt Correa, Righetti (another big win for the Bears)

UPDATE, 11:03 a.m.: Like I expected, a good match going on between Bakersfield's Demison and Canyon Springs' Cabanas. It's 3-3 in the third period, each wrestler with a first-period takedown and an escape. About a minute to go. Elsewhere, Clovis North's Vince Rodriguez and Clovis West's Zach Zimmer are having an easy time in their second-round matches. Rodriguez won 12-0 and Zimmer is up 12-5 at the start of the third.
Cabanas has gotten a couple of takedowns on Demison just before the wreslters went out of bounds, and he'll survive 7-5.
In other news, East Bakersfield is wrestling very well. A couple of lightweights, Peter Gonzalez and Marc Collier, have taken down state-ranked guys after stumbling to seventh-place finishes at the section meet (at home, no less) last week. Collier just beat La Habra's Aaron LaFarge 10-8 in the second round, and Gonzalez is ahead 7-4 in his second-round match in the third period over on Mat 10.
Some more notable results from the first round: 171—Ryan Mackey, Ripon, over Alex Brown, Poway; Chris Heath, Sunnyside, over Zack Blumenfeld, Gunn; 189—James Chandless, over Adam O'Brian, Petaluma; Jesus Chavez, River Valley, over J.T. Bauman, Dublin; 215—George Dunlap, Soquel, over Joshua Mei, Atascadero; Tired Olson, South Hills, over Ben Holmes, Vacaville.
 

UPDATE, 10:38 a.m.: Results through 160 pounds are in, a big win for Buchanan's Martin Fabbian over state-ranked Cezar Padilla of Pitman at 152 pounds. The Bears will need more where that came from from their "role wrestlers" to get it done for the team title. Also, at 103 pounds, Selma's Alex Cisneros, the freshman who's already a legend from his youth wrestling days, started his bid for a first state championship with a 15-0 tech fall of Norwalk's Stephen Joyce. I'll be looking at Bakersfield's Natrelle Demison against Estevan Cabanas of Canyon Springs next. Cabanas is No. 5 in state, but Demison has come on strong of late. Could be a good one.

UPDATE, 10:28 am.: We have results from 103 to 140 now. I was picking on Selma a bit earlier, so I should mention that their 112-pounder, Diego Quintana, had a big win against Brawley's Antonio Osuna, who was ranked fourth in the state coming in. That's what the Tigers need.
Other surprising results so far: 112—Isa Hurtado, Shelton, over Juan Jaime, Laguna Hills; 119—Peter Gonzalez, East Bakersfield, over Dylan Barrales, Temecula Valley; 125—Oscar Lizarraga, Brawley, over Kevin Barton, El Modena; 135—Micky Phanthavong, Granite HIlls, over Sean Regan, Sultana; 140—Nick Jackson, Atascadero, over Nick Escalera, Selma

Heavyweight matches are being wrestled right now. Second round of championship is on deck.

UPDATE, 9:59 a.m.: Speaking of Selma, 152-pounder Justin Lozano just lost a big lead in the third period. He led Poway's Jake Poliakoff by four points but gave up three late takedowns to tie the match, and Poliakoff just took Lozano down in overtime! Bigtime comeback for the Titans in a match that could prove crucial to team scoring. Not a good back-to-back for Selma.

UPDATE, 9:49 a.m.: Disappointing loss for Selma at 140 pounds — Nick Escalera was defeated, I believe 6-2, by Atascadero's Nick Johnson in a first-round match. If the Tigers are going to win a state title, they're going to have to get points from somewhere besides 103-pounder Alex Cisneros and 130-pounder Jose Mendoza.

UPDATE, 9:38 a.m.: And we're live. Sorry about the delay, I had problems parking and then with the wireless network here. But it appears to be all systems go now.
As for the results you all have asked for below, I'll do my best. It might be till the end of the round before I can get results for sure though — that's when the CIF will distribute them to media. In the meantime, I'll listen to results and watch as much as I can. I've also got to go over to the convention center, where they're going to announce at 10 a.m. that the state tournament is coming back to Bakersfield for at least the next three years.
One upset I did catch earlier — Peter Gonzalez of East Bakersfield beat Temecula Valley's No. 7-ranked Dylan Barrales at 119 pounds. Not really an upset, since Gonzalez is a returning state placer, but Barrales was the ranked wrestler. I believe the score was 4-0.

ORIGINAL POST: Welcome to Day 1 of the CIF State Wrestling Championships, the action-packed, 10-mat, wall-to-wall drama that will unfold below us on the Rabobank Arena floor in Bakersfield. Welcome to fans around the state and welcome bak to those Central Section fans who joined us for the Masters live blog last weekend.

I will update here as much as I can, though it won't be the results of every match like it was last week. If there's an upset or a big match, you can bet you'll see the results on here. I'll also make sure I have tomorrow's semifinal matchups up before night's end.

If there's a specific wrestler or match you're looking for results to, let me know in the comments below, and I'll do my best to let you know. Be as specific as you can with weight, school and name.

Otherwise, let's get ready to rumble. Wrestling starts at 9 a.m. sharp.