Six local wrestlers are on their way to Stockton for the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Masters Tournament at University of Pacific today and Saturday.

Napa High will be represented by Jake Croxdale (171 pounds), Drew Alves (112), Warren McCann (135) and Kevin Nickerson (130), while Nick Miller (140) and Chris O’Conner (145) will compete for Vintage.

Croxdale led the bunch with a second-place showing at last week’s Sub-Section Divisional Tournament. Alves took fourth, Miller and O’Conner were fifth and McCann and Nickerson placed sixth. The top six wrestlers moved on.

Croxdale is in his third season as a varsity starter and Indians head coach Nacho Franco feels the junior is at the top of the 32-wrestler bracket.

Croxdale is last season’s team MVP and is also a natural-born leader.

“Jake’s an incredible athlete,” Franco said. “He’s head above shoulders, listens really well, everything he does — he does on his own. He’s very easy to coach. He’s a great kid all around. He’s incredibly talented physically, very strong. Great all-around athlete who absorbs coaching really well.”

Only the top six grapplers will head on to next week’s State meet in Bakersfield.

Just a sophomore, Alves is close to ending his second year as a varsity starter. It isn’t every day a sophomore makes his way to sections.

Franco can’t seem to recall a time since he wrestled for Napa High in the early 1990s.

Alves and Croxdale both play football for the Indians. At just more than 100 pounds, football can take its toll on an athlete, but in wrestling, Alves has been able to hold his own, and then some.

“Drew and Jake are in the same class,” Franco said. “Both are great athletes. It’s hard to pinpoint little things. Drew is a little guy who was playing football, just finds out that wrestling is a sport and he’s been doing well as a sophomore.”

Miller, a junior, and O’Conner, a senior, began the season at each others’ weights but switched it up as of late. O’Conner is a team captain, though he isn’t overly vocal. He doesn’t bark orders but rather helps lead practices.

“(O’Conner) has the respect of the kids,” Vintage coach Jim Lanterman said.

“Nick has enough experience to know you have to put some effort toward it for it to work.”

Miller is in his second year as a varsity starter while O’Conner is in his third.

“They’re pretty intense when it comes to wrestling,” Lanterman said. “Chris has the determination to really go and work hard. He gets results from it. Fortunately he hasn’t been hurt much as well.

“Nick has kind of a unique style of wrestling. He’s a leg rider, which for a lot of kids, they don’t do that much like they used to. It throws his opponents off somewhat. He works from the top a lot and rides real well. He turns the guy and gets points that way. He doesn’t usually win by pins, he wins his matches more by decision because of his style of wrestling.”

McCann and Nickerson are first-year varsity wrestlers. They didn’t start the season off as top performers but have peaked at the right time. Franco said they were in the Top 10 at the Divisionals and saw an opening and beat the right opponents to advance.

“They both kind of had to challenge themselves this season,” Franco added. “Kevin has done an incredible job. He struggled with grades at the beginning, worked really hard with the team and helped his teammates. Now he’s had a lot of success because he’s headed it the right direction.”

A challenge all the grapplers face is making sure they cut weight along with maintaining their body fat percentage. Male wrestlers can’t dip below seven percent while females can’t settle under 12.

Franco has been coaching at Napa High for over a decade and takes the health of his team very seriously. He leads them through a nutritional system and doesn’t allow anyone to do any “serious weight cutting, mostly just two to three pounds of water weight before weigh-ins.”

Now more than ever, Franco is grateful for the additional resources he has to make sure his team is doing all that is possible to be and stay healthy. With all the studies and education out there, wrestling is ridding its once-bad rap.

“We have more research, we can put kids on a good nutritional plan and exercise and keep them healthy,” Franco said. “We tell them what are good foods and bad foods. The daily schedule of these kids, we have to make sure they’re eating right and have the energy to compete in wrestling.

“Being seven percent body fat is ideal for any athlete. I lean more towards as long as you have a good diet, exercise and know what you’re doing, it’s great. It’s a good life-lesson for later.”

In Napa, high schools don’t have feeder systems for their wrestlers. Unlike football, baseball and basketball, kids don’t have the same resources to begin the sport at an earlier age. This makes it difficult for high school coaches and athletes to compete with other communities who have wrestlers who’ve been in the game longer.

“The Sac-Joaquin Section is the toughest section in the state. You’re competing against the top 200 schools,” Franco said. “I think we’ll do well. At this point, it depends on where you end in the bracket. They need to make the least mistakes possible.”

Lanterman added, “Going as a fifth seed is going to be tough. There’s quite a few solid teams, several state-ranked. They have deep programs. But given the right circumstances, if you can get on the right side of the bracket you just might slip through. Right away you’re going to go against someone’s No. 1 or 2 wrestler. Everyone wants to go to state, so they’ll all work hard to get there. It will be hard but not impossible.”