ALBANY — For his second go-round in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Division I wrestling championships, Liverpool’s Audey Ashkar had what seemed like a contradictory approach, saying he wanted to be “mentally relaxed, and physically aggressive.”
Ashkar’s stellar season, where he went 42-1, helped him earn the no. 5 seed for the state tournament at 132 pounds, meaning that, if he at least performed to expectations, he would earn a podium finish – but he did a lot more, rising all the way to third place by meet’s end.
In the first round, Ashkar faced Newark Valley’s Gianno Silba. With a takedown and near-fall in the first period, Ashkar accumulated a 7-1 lead, and from there he kept adding to that margin, only allowing the occasional escape and defeating Silba by a 12-4 margin.
Later on Friday, Ashkar faced the no. 4 seed, Hector Colom (Buffalo St. Francis). in the quarterfinal round. Colom had won a tough 12-8 opening-round bout against Minisink Valley’s Dom Vetrano and, more importantly, had given Ashkar his lone defeat this season Dec. 12 by a 4-3 margin at the Demeco Trainor Duals at Churchville-Chili, near Rochester.
Bent on getting even with Colom in a bout with far larger stakes, Ashkar did so, waiting until the period to go in front on a takedown. Clinging to a 2-1 lead going to the third period, Ashkar made a crucial escape and then took down Colom twice more in the last two minutes, leading to a decisive 9-2 win.
Now Ashkar rested until Saturday morning’s semifinal bout, where he would face his biggest challenge of the season. Top seed Vito Arujau, from Syosset, had blazed through the first two rounds with technical falls over Derek St. James (Gates-Chili) and Max Tempel (Averill Park), neither bout going beyond the second period.
continued — And even with Ashkar’s sensational ability, Arujau would prove dominant here, too, accumulating points until he had beaten Ashkar in a 20-5 technical that took just four minutes to complete.
Later that night, Arujau would rout Lake Shore’s Frederick Eckles 19-6 and win his third state championship. In fact, Arujau has won 136 bouts in a row and has gone 178-1 for his high school career, his lone defeat coming to Hilton’s four-time state champion, Yianni Diakomihalis.
Meanwhile, Ashkar still had a consolation bracket to conquer, which he did first by fighting off Half Hollow Hills East’s Phillip Spadafora 3-1, setting up a third-place match against Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake’s Christian Gramuglia.
Leading by one point late in the third period, Ashkar engineered a takedown of Gramuglia that gave him his winning cushion as Ashkar prevailed, 5-3, for that third-place finish.
Of course, Ashkar was not the only Warriors wrestler in Albany’s Times Union Center last weekend. So was freshman Christian Bradshaw, the 106-pound sectional champion, who got sage advice from Ashkar about how to deal with the big arena and the frenzied atmosphere – namely, to forget all of it and concentrate on the mat and his opponent.
That opponent for the 36-5 Bradshaw was Yonkers’ Justin Lopez, the no. 3 seed. Lopez executed a takedown in the last minute of the open period and nearly pinned Bradshaw, amassing a 7-0 lead. From there, Bradshaw could not recover, but he did avoid a technical fall and pin and went all six minutes, eventually getting on the board in the waning seconds of a 15-2 defeat.
Bradshaw went into the consolation bracket, hoping to make a sustained run there, but ran into Shoreham-Wading River’s Kevin Meloni and took a defeat in 2:24, ending a season where he had gone 35-7 and won a sectional title, with three more years of high school eligibility to attain even more glory.
continued — Eastport South Manor’s Adam Busiello won the state 106-pound title, beating Trey Wardlaw (East Ramapo) 6-1 in the finals, while Lopez finished third and Meloni took fifth place.
Just one Section III Division I wrestler made it to the finals – New Hartford’s Kelan McKenna, who finished second at 113 pounds. Ashkar and CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt’s Matt Griffin (99 pounds) each had third-place efforts.
By contrast, in Division II (small schools), Section III produced six state champions – Holland Patent teammates Alex Herringshaw (a three-time winner at 170 pounds) and Hunter Richard (a two-time champion at 145 pounds), plus Central Valley Academy’s Jon Charles (99 pounds), Sherburne-Earlville’s Jack Buell (195 pounds), General Brown’s Ricardo Dawkins (220 pounds) and Adirondack’s Andrew Tanner (285 pounds).
