The superb season enjoyed by the CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt wrestling team would allow them to earn one of the 16 coveted spots in last Saturday’s Section III Dual Meet at Cicero-North Syracuse High School.

Starting out as the no. 6 seed, CBA/J-D would take on no. 11 seed Copenhagen in the opening round and prevail, 48-31, over the Gold Knights, building an insurmountable lead through the first 13 bouts.

It helped, no doubt, that Copenhagen forfeited three early contests to Dustin Harris (138 pounds), Adam Honis (160 pounds) and Ramy Guindy (285 pounds), but Jake Wright, at 170 pounds, pinned Marcus Hills in 30 seconds, with Ethan Palmer (195 pounds) pinning Cody Zubrzycki early in the third period and Chris Pappas (220 pounds) getting a second-period fall over Josh Greenwood.

Even with a big lead, CBA/J-d didn’t seal it until a late push that began at 106 pounds when Matt Griffin pinned Lane Hoch in 25 seconds. Following up, Garrett Bauer (113 pounds) edged Jake Galster 4-3 and Shane Smith, at 120 pounds, got an 11-7 decision over Anthony Metzler.

Now CBA/J-D advanced to the quarterfinals, against Camden, the no. 14 seed. But the Blue Devils had already knocked off no. 3 seed Indian River and, here, would do the same, 44-33 to end CBA/J-D’s run.

They started at 145, and Camden won five straight bouts, four of them pins, to amass a 28-0 edge before CBA/J-D even got on the board, doing so at 195 when Palmer pinned Kyle Seymore in the second period.

That, along with Guindy’s 3-1 decision over Austin Confer, helped CBA/J-D climb back in it, but forfeits to Bauer, Ethan Wells (99 pounds) and David Beseth (106) helped, too, as did Griffin beating Hunter Williams at 113, which cut Camden’s lead to 40-30 before back-to-back Blue Devils wins clinched it, though Harris beat Josh Mayden 7-2 in the finale.

Camden went on to take a 54-24 defeat to no. 2 seed Adirondack in the semifinals, and the Wildcats went on to win the Dual Meet title for the first time, holding off Fulton 35-32 in the championship round.

Before all this, CBA/J-D met Phoenix last Wednesday night and was doubled up in a 54-27 defeat to the Firebirds, who dominated the first and last portions of the meet to counteract what CBA/J-D did in the middle.

Phoenix won four consecutive bouts, with three pins and a forfeit, to go up 24-0 before Palmer broke that spell, pinning Billy Reeves in 2:34. Then Mingus Betsey (285) edged Josh Sutliffe 3-2, with Bauer, Ethan Wells (99) and Shane Smith (120) all winning with forfeits.

Amid that run, though, Griffin lost, 7-0, to Cahal Donovan, so it was 27-27 with five bouts left. Phoenix proceeded to win each of the remaining five bouts, the closest of them an 11-3 defeat by Harris to Brad Dietz at 138.

East Syracuse Minoa wrestled twice and earned a split, blown out by Fulton 74-3, but defeating Oswego by an equally lopsided margin as it beat the Buccaneers 63-11.

Against Oswego, ESM got rolling at 170 when Medo Pugojna pinned Dakota Ellis in 2:45. Darian Crossman (182) had a 16-0 technical fall over Frankie Dahar, while Joe Monteleone (195) pinned Aaron LaTulip in 88 seconds.

Ameer Ladd’s pin over Sultan Ahmed at 285 required just 32 seconds. Following that, Donovan Marriott (106), Casey O’Donnell (113), Dylan Stegemeier (132), Garren Kuney (145) and Jeff Loder (152) all claimed forfeits, with Alex Regan closing it out at 152 by recording a third-period fall over Brian Lebron.

Alex Regan prevented a shutout against Fulton, prevailing at 160 over Andrew Yablonski 11-4. Other bouts were close, though, including Loder taking a 2-0 defeat to Jacob Bailey, Crossman falling to Dylan Gorman 8-6 and Ladd, at 220, battling Noah Gates in a 5-0 defeat.

Also, Fayetteville-Manlius took on Auburn last Wednesday night, and just could not earn enough mat victories to keep up with the Maroons in a 46-31 defeat.

Both Braden Florczyk, at 113, and Ben Christopher, at 120, took early forfeits to put the Hornets up 12-6, but Auburn claimed the next three bouts, including Austin Duger (132) holding off F-M’s Ali Salem 6-3, to grab a 21-12 lead.

Fighting back, the Hornets saw James Ferro (145) dominate Lucas Hogan 13-1 as a forfeit to Bryce Doane at 152 helped F-M regain a 22-21 lead. That didn’t last, either, as four Maroons pins in the next five bouts decided matters, Mukhtar Quibasy (182 pounds) breaking that string for F-M with a 9-5 win over Michael Hamilton. Andrew Testani claimed a late forfeit at 285.