Even a wrestling program as strong and traditional as Baldwinsville faced a fair amount of transition going into the 2013-14 season.
The combined departures of Kevin Paul, Chad McArdell, Gunnar Sutphen, Steve Petrelli and Joe Nasoni, stars responsible for hundreds of victories on the mat in their years with the Bees, would rattle any program.
Paul was a three-time Section III Division I champion, while Sutphen and McArdell also claimed sectional titles in 2014 and Nasoni earned a wild-card berth in last season’s state championship meet.
Of course, none of these changes affected B’ville too much in its season-opening meet at Auburn last Wednesday night, which nearly turned into a shutout as the Bees won all but one of the bouts and mashed the Maroons 74-3.
B’ville earned the first three wins by forfeits at 106, 113 and 120 pounds. Then, in the first contested bout at 126 pounds, Tyler Patrick defeated Justin Marullo 12-4 and Jeremy Pond (132 pounds) followed up with a 7-2 win over Austin Duger.
David Rush got the Bees’ first pin of the season, at 138 pounds, finishing off Hunter Duger 40 seconds into the third period. Brian Rush (145 pounds) had a tougher match, edging Jack Hogan 9-6, but Sam Candee (152 pounds) pinned John Leone in 52 seconds.
Then Connor Ross, one of the Bees’ returning veteran starts, debuted at 160 pounds with a first-period fall over Josh Geissel. Thor Sutphen, Gunnar’s younger brother, checked it at 170 pounds with an 11-2 win over Alden Rubeck.
John Petrelli, wrestling at 182 pounds, pinned Parker Hogan in 1:26, with Alex Bowen (195 pounds) taking 1:56 to pin Mike Hamilton. Nick Stanton, at 220 pounds, took B’ville’s lone defeat, 8-6, to Auburn’s Julian Bernard, but Mike Spicer (285 pounds) recorded a 29-second pin over Bryan VanTassell before a forfeit to Jacob Cavallo at 99 pounds.
B’ville would get a bigger test Saturday, at Cicero-North Syracuse’s annual Andersen Tournament, and with a partial team (others would wrestle in the Blue Devil Duals at Cato-Meridian) would only manage 47 points to finish 21st out of 26 teams. Fulton (158 points) edged Lockport (153.5 points) and Dolgeville (150.5 points) for first place.
Just one Bees wrestler cracked the top four – Bowen, at 195. During a tense semifinal, Bowen lost a 2-1 decision to Liverpool’s Nate Knox, and then reached the consolation bracket final, where Fulton’s Aaron Yablonski beat him 11-2.
Josh Peck, competing at 120 pounds, finished sixth, falling in the quarterfinals to C-NS’s Joe Barber (the 106-pound sectional champion in 2014) before a 1-2 mark in the consolation bracket. Pond was sixth at 132 after a 3-1 semifinal defeat to Lockport’s Steven Kapuscinski.
B’ville is on the road throughout this week, first in a Wednesday-night trip to Fayetteville-Manlius, and then Saturday during the General Brown Duals at Dexter, where the Lions, along with Watertown IHC, Beaver River, Carthage and Ogdensburg, provide the opposition.
