Liverpool — One more time, Liverpool wrestler Audey Ashkar got to perform on his home mats during last Saturday’s Section III Class AA championship meet, and he didn’t disappoint.
Ashkar, the holder of more wins than anyone in the program’s long history, not only claimed the 132-pound championship, he also earned Most Outstanding Wrestler honors, even though the Warriors could not repeat it 2015 triumph in this same meet.
In those final team standings, Liverpool, with 176 points finished third, while Cicero-North Syracuse (124 points) finished fifth. Baldwinsville, who lost to the Warriors by a single point in this same meet one year ago, won this time with 260 points as CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt (182 points) edged out Liverpool for the runner-up spot.
To get started, Ashkar pinned CBA/J-D’s Brian Martin near the end of the first period, followed a by a semifinal where he took 3:18 to pin Ali Salem (Fayetteville-Manlius). Meanwhile, Jerry Nash also wrestled at 132 and reached the final by beating Mehki Shepherd (Institute of Technology Central) 11-0, but Ashkar would win the final over Nash by a 10-3 margin.
Two other Liverpool wrestlers prevailed, starting with Christian Bradshaw at 106 pounds. Bradshaw survived a tough 7-5 semifinal with B’ville’s Jacob Cavallo as C-NS’s Nathan Osborne pinned Peyton Rupracht (Central Square) in 4:20 in the other semifinal. The final proved thrilling, with Bradshaw and Osborne trading points, but it was Bradshaw prevailing by an 8-7 margin.
Sean Nadeau gave the Warriors a victory at 120 pounds. Having beaten CBA/J-D’s Shane Smith 12-3 in his semifinal, Nadeau met the challenge of the Northstars’ Travis Harrington, who held off B’ville’s Jake Naples 2-1 in his semifinal. With strong defensive work, Nadeau shut out Harrington 4-0.
Other than Nash, the only other second-place finisher for Liverpool was Jaylen Barron, at 170 pounds. Barron pinned Griffin Sasso (West Genesee) in less than 90 seconds to reach his title bout, only to run into another B’ville wrestler, Thor Sutphen, where a tight contest followed, but Sutphen claimed a 5-3 decision.
continued — C-NS also saw Joe Mayers get close to the 126-pound championship. A pin over Rome Free Academy’s Wally Wright landed Mayers in the final against B’ville’s Kevin Lewis, and that proved close, too, but Lewis edged Mayers 3-2.
Liverpool had three other wrestlers – Steve Pascarella (113 pounds), Nick Thomas (182 pounds) and Zach Eason (220 pounds) – finish fourth, and in Eason’s case it came at the expense of C-NS’s Chris St. Denny, who beat Eason 2-0 in the consolation bracket final.
Dylan Wallace, wrestling at 138 pounds, finished fifth for the Warriors, pinning C-NS’s Nick Gazzillo in 3:30 for that spot. At 152 pounds, Liverpool’s Will Ronan met up with the Northstars’ Troy Mista for fifth place, and Ronan, like Wallace, won with a second-period fall.
All told, the Northstars had three third-place finishers. Besides St. Denny, Christian Anoceto, at 285 pounds, claimed his consolation bracket with a 5-2 victory over Central Square’s Zach Stultz, while at 99 pounds Dario Cicarelli gained third place by beating West Genesee’s Patrick Ivery 6-2.
Josh Bigford gave C-NS a fourth-place finish at 160 pounds, while at 106 Jacob Montminy, who finished behind Bradshaw and Osborne, beat Rupracht for fifth place and Landry Rogers (170) was sixth, matching Liverpool’s Ryan Blowers (126) and Brady Depan (285) with that finish.
Most of these wrestlers will go to SRC Arena this Saturday for the sectional Division I (Large School) championships, which start at 10 a.m. Only the winners in the 15 weight classes are guaranteed spots in the Feb. 26-27 state championships at Albany’s Times Union Center.