That long trip the Skaneateles wrestling team had to take to Sherburne-Earlville High School for last Saturday’s Section III Class C championship meet proved to be a successful one.
The Lakers finished third in a 13-team field, seeing four of its top wrestlers – Max Collier, Andrew Newton, Pat Greenfield and J.W. Simmons – make it to the championship round.
All told, Skaneateles had 166 points. Only General Brown, who won the sectional title with 210 points, and Canastota, who took second with 183 points, fared better.
Collier, who reached the 100-win mark one week earlier in the OHSL Liberty/Patriot meet at Skaneateles, was the no. 3 seed, but he beat Nick Rouse (Canastota) 5-3 to reach the 113-pound final, and got into a close title bout with Herkimer’s T.J. Philpotts, though Philpots won by a 5-2 margin.
Newton made a long run at 152 pounds, making his way to the finals against another Herkimer wrestler, Collin Treen. This one proved close, too, in doubt until the final seconds, when Treen held on and defeated Newton 3-2.
Just a sophomore, Greenfield rolled through the 182-pound weight class, needing overtime to beat Kris Rutherford Canastota) 6-4 in the semifinals, but he never got a chance to get comfortable in the title bout against Port Byron’s Chris Pinckney, who pinned Greenfield less than 30 seconds into the first period.
Simmons, also a sophomore, pinned top seed Joe Powers in the semfinals at 99 pounds and made his way to the final against General Brown’s Cody Fields – where, like Greenfield, Simmons lost in a fall, though he held on to the second period before Fields finished it off.
Four other Lakers got to the consolation bracket finals, but only one of them, Josh Brillo, emerged with a third-place finish, Brillo earning it at 132 pounds by pinning Morrisville-Eaton’s Trevor Simzer in 1:16 after taking an defeat to Lowville’s Caleb Mayer in the quarterfinals.
As for Joey Brillo, he finished fourth at 120 pounds, while Mike Goetzmann grabbed fourth place at 145 pounds and T.J. Greenfield made it to fourth place at 220 pounds.
But Skaneateles did a lot better in the fifth-place bouts, going three-for-three. Christian Daley, at 106 pounds, shut out Port Byron’s Katherine Sumner 12-0, while at 170 pounds Francis Lombardi pinned Josh Latrell midway through the third period and, at 195 pounds, Joey McIntyre won a tough 4-3 decision over Port Byron’s Nick Buehler.
These results mean that eight Laker wrestlers (a record) will find their way to Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena for this Saturday’s Section III Division II (small school) championships, which start at 10 a.m. Winners advance to the Feb. 27-28 state meet in Albany.
