A strong regular season, and an Onondaga High School League Liberty/Patriot title earned on Jan. 30, did little to help the Marcellus wrestling team when it ventured to Central Valley Academy for Saturday’s Section III Class B championship meet.
Despite nine top-six finishes, the Mustangs could not get any of its wrestlers to the championship round and finished eighth in the 12-team field with 106 points. The host team from CVA won with 192 points, holding off Phoenix (179.5 points) and Camden (163 points) at the top.
Riley Donovan, at 120 pounds, and Sam Rice, at 126 pounds, had the best finishes for Marcellus. Donovan ran into Mexico’s Theo Powers and lost his semifinal, but recovered for third place, edging Phoenix’s Toby McKeen 2-0 in the consolation bracket final.
As for Rice, he, too, lost a semifinal to a Mexico wrestler, in this case Hunter Howland, whose third-period technical fall led Rice into the same path as Donovan – and ultimately, the same finish after Rice pinned Camden’s Hunter Holliday in 2:25 in the third-place bout.
Two other Marcellus wrestlers had fourth-place finishes, including Alex Czerniak at 113 pounds, who ran into South Jefferson’s Trey LaFlamme in his semifinal and lost in a first- period fall before a 5-1 loss in the consolation bracket final to Homer’s Isaac Cline.
Corey Garvey claimed fourth place at 195 pounds, yet another Marcellus wrestler who lost a semifinal bout to a Mexico foe, in this case Brandon Gracey, though Garvey did pin Chris Warner (Oneida) before dropping the third-place match to Phoenix’s Austin Wirth 13-4.
At 132 pounds, Ben Hood beat Cortland’s Kiegan Brown 6-2 for fifth place, a mark Kern Linder matched at 220 pounds when he pinned Camden’s Austin Confer at the end of the first period and also equaled by Alexsandr Popov when he got a fall over Oneida’s Nate Winchell in 2;07. Tristan Duger (138 pounds) and Nick Distefano (145 pounds) each had sixth-place efforts.
West Genesee finished sixth in the nine-team field in the sectional Class AA tournament at Liverpool High School with 110 points, though it was far off Baldwinsville’s winning total of 260 points.
Two Wildcats made it to the finals – Liam Kotas at 160 pounds and Zach Valerino at 220 pounds. Kotas took a 12-8 defeat to CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt’s Jake Wright, while Valerino could not keep up with B’ville’s Mike Spicer in a 17-3 loss.
Griffin Sasso finished third at 170 pounds, beating Nahjir Dean (Institute of Technology Central) 8-3 in the consolation bracket final. Three others – Patrick Ivery (99 pounds), Cole Wade (126) and Mike Linton (145) – had fourth-place efforts, with Kris Guglielmo fifth at 170 pounds and Randall Ouimet matching that effort at 195 pounds. Brady Ryan was sixth at 132.
Many of these same wrestlers will head to SRC Arena this Saturday for the overall sectional Division II (small school) tournament, which starts at 10 a.m.
