All of the work for the CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt and Fayetteville-Manlius wrestling teams during the holiday school break concentrated into a pair of tournaments – one at SUNY-Oswego, the other at Canastota High School.
It started on Dec. 27-28 with the Kenneth Haines Memorial in Oswego, where CBA/J-D picked up 144 points to finish seventh in a 24-team field, while F-M gained 84 points and took 14th place. Fairport, with 215.5 points, edged Newark Valley (214 points) and Fulton (207 points) for the top spot.
Ben Honis led CBA/J-D as he won the 195-pound division. Honis pinned Aaron McEathon (Gouverneur) and Ben Klei (Victor) to reach the finals, and completed his romp through the field in the championship match when he pinned Camden’s Thad Casler with 25 seconds left in their match.
Mark Friske used a 5-1 decision over Cato-Meridian’s Nick Sharp to reach the 182-pound finals, but lost that title bout to Phoenix’s William Hilliard, who pinned him early in the third period.
Elsewhere for CBA/J-D, Matt Griffin won third place at 99 pounds when he shut out Fairport’ Jacob Bell 4-0 in the consolation bracket final. Matt Lauro did the same at 132 pounds, holding off another Fairport wrestler, James Aaro, 7-4 to finish third. Arsen Bagiryan finished sixth at 126 pounds.
Three different times, F-M wrestlers reached the finals. Paddy Quinlan did so at 132 pounds, pinning Aaro in the semifinals, only to suffer his own fall at the hands of Mexico’s Austin Whitney in the championship match as Whitney snared Most Outstanding Wrestler honors.
Tim Byrnes met particular frustration in the 170-pound division. After an 8-2 decision over Kyle Collins (Victor) and a 16-0 technical fall over Tim Gandino (Phoenix) in the semifinals, Byrnes and Mexico’s Jacob Woolson went to overtime in the title match tied, only to have Woolson’s takedown leave Byrnes on the wrong end of a 7-5 decision.
As for Tristan Broddus, he shut out Brian Carr (Liverpool) in a 15-0 technical fall and beat Hannibal’s Greg Hadcock 9-2 in the 145-pound semifinals, only to run into Newark Valley’s Trevor Hoffmeir and take a second-period fall in the championship bout. East Syracuse-Minoa’s Sam LeGro finished eighth in that division.
Now CBA/J-D and F-M both turned to Canastota for the Fallen Heroes (formerly Richard New Memorial) Tournament, whose start got pushed back 24 hours by bad winter weather until Saturday.
Once it did start on Saturday, the local sides finished together in the standings, F-M rising to fifth place in the 18-team field with 143.5 points to edge out CBA/J-D, who had 141.5 points for sixth place. Camden, with 241 points, took top honors.
Quinlan, Broddus and Byrnes each reached their respective finals – and swept them. At 132, Quinlan had to beat Lauro, 8-4, in the semifinals, and then beat Tyler Field (Onondaga) 10-5 in the title bout.
Meanwhile, Broddus proved impressive at 145, pinning Aaron Yablonski (Fulton) in 3:51 in the semifinals and then, in the finals, rolling past Gouverneur’s Joey Love 10-2.
Byrnes, to win at 171, beat Brett Finch (Camden) 7-2 in the semifinals before dominating Whitesboro’s Landon Slawson in the title bout, winning on a third-period technical fall.
By contrast, of CBA/J-D’s three wrestlers that reached the finals, only Honis, at 195, went to the top, and he did so by pinning F-M’s Chris Bortel in the semifinals in 1:25 before an 8-0 shutout over Camden’s Thad Cassler in the championship round. Bortel would recover to finish third, pinning Josh Knamm (Holland Patent) in the consolation bracket final in 3:59.
Griffin finished second at 99 pounds, falling in the title bout to New Hartford’s Ian McKenna 7-2, while Friske, at 182, got pinned in his final by Phoenix’s William Hilliard in the third period.
