ALBANY – A special season that included Class AA and Division I titles for the Cicero-North Syracuse wrestling team would conclude with four of its wrestlers at Albany’s MVP Arena for the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
Two of them, Kamdin Bembry (215 pound) and Kennedy Thomas (145 pounds), had earned their places with automatic berths by winning their respective weight classes in the Feb. 10 sectional Division I meet at SRC Arena.
They were joined by Aaron Westcott at 116 pounds. Westcott was chosen with a 27-11 mark and was the lone at-large choice after Kasey Kalfass, at 101 pounds, was unable to wrestle.
Of the three, Bembry, holding a perfect 41-0 record, was in the best position going into the state meet, having picked up the no. 9 seed and, by doing so, avoided an opening-round bout that each of his C-NS teammates faced.
But Bembry’s round-of-16 bout against Orchard Park’s Jack MacDonald on Friday proved a frustrating one.
MacDonald’s early takedown was the key blow in the bout as Bembry shut him out the rest of the way, but could manage nothing more than a second-period escape resulting in a single point. Hanging on from there, MacDonald prevailed 2-1.
So Bembry was quickly in the consolation bracket, where he pinned Chris Ayala (Baldwin) and Nick Whyte (Shaker) in the second period to reach Saturday’s competition with a good chance at a podium finish.
Against Saratoga Springs’ Patrick McKinley, Bembry got a pin midway through the third period, assuring his podium finish. And though he lost 8-2 to Newburgh’s Chris Leggett and fell 8-3 to Middletown’s Bryson Tibbs, Bembry still took sixth place, best among the C-NS wrestlers.
Meanwhile, Thomas, with his no. 12 seed and 30-2 record, had to wrestle against Luke Burke (MacArthur) in the opening round and, trailing most of the way, managed to turn it around and, in the final seconds, pin Burke to win it.
Thomas won again a couple of hours later, topping East Islip’s Anthony Avitabile with a pin in three minutes, 33 seconds, leading to the quarterfinals, where he was stopped in a 10-0 defeat to Niagara-Wheatfield’s Te’Shaun Matthews.
An injury default put Thomas past Daniel Parker (Ithaca), but that kept him from advancing further in the bracket as he had to default to Pittsford’s Zach Gerby.
Westcott was also a no. 18 seed, meeting up with Elmira’s Ryder Depauda-Reese and, taking charge from the outset, piling up points until he pinned Depauda-Reese near the midway point of the second period.
A round-of-16 loss to the no. 2 seed, Hewlett’sCarlos Salazar, scuttled the state title dreams, and he dropped a 5-3 decision to Cieslinksi (Spencerport) in the consolation bracket.
