From the expected triumphs of the Griffin brothers to the more unlikely titles gained by Jonah Cavallo and Jake Wright, the Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA wrestling team made quite a loud statement during last Saturday’s Section III Division I championships at SRC Arena.
Not only did four wrestlers earn trips to Albany’s Times Union Center for the Feb. 24-25 state championships, J-D/CBA also made it to second place in the Division I team standings, earning 190.5 points to beat everyone except Fulton, who won with 241 points. Baldwinsville was third with 177.5 points.
Each of J-D/CBA’s nine podium finishers got third place or better, but it was Myles and Matt Griffin setting the tone with their domination of the lightest weight classes.
At 99 pounds, Myles Griffin pinned Ashton Thompson (Rome Free Academy) in 56 seconds and routed Dario Ciciarelli (Cicero-North Syracuse) 13-1 to reach the final, where Central Square’s Kole Malhauser never got close as Griffin prevailed 11-2, improving to 29-3 on the winter.
Meanwhile, at 106, Matt Griffin repeated his sectional title, routing Hunter Guyette (Carthage) in a technical fall and pinning his teammate, Ethan Wells, in 26 seconds in the semifinals before blanking Fulton’s Tom Hughes 4-0 in the final to improve his season mark to 33-2 Wells would finish third, beating Brandon Luedermann (Central Square) 6-3 in the consolation bracket final.
Cavallo was not the top seed at 145 – Baldwinsville’s David Rush held that spot. Yet after an 11- 1 win over Hunter Duger (Auburn) and 11-2 romp over West Genesee star Devin Earl, Cavallo faced Rush and was tied, 2-2, before a third-period reversal got Cavalllo in front, and he held on for a 4-3 decision to earn the sectional crown and improve his record to 30-5.
Wright completed the J-D/CBA championship quartet at 160 pounds. A 61-second pin over Caden Rupracht (Central Square) was followed by a 13-0 semifinal romp over West Genesee’s Victor Elias.
This set up the final pitting Wright against the top seed, Oswego’s Stephen Demong, and Wright nearly pinned him in the first period, building a quick 7-1 lead. He would need that cushion, since Demong was better in the last two periods, but Wright did enough escaping to pull out an 11-8 decision and the sectional title, improving to 27-5 this winter.
Also donning the Solvay colors for the final was J-D/CBA’s Zach Langdon, who at 170 pounds was just the no. 5 seed and barely got past his first match with Liverpool’s Will Ronan, 5-2, but then beat the top seed from Fayetteville-Manlius, Bryce Doane. 6-3, setting up a close final where Langdon fell just short in a 5-2 loss to Fulton’s Andrew Yablonski.
Adam Honis made his own run to the finals at 182 pounds, the key moment a tense 9-7 semifinal win over B’ville’ Dan Fawwaz, who was the no. 2 seed. Yet Honis could not stay on the mat against Central Square’s Max Emond in the finals, suffering a second-period fall. Tyler Kellison started his run at 126 pounds by getting a technical fall over F-M’s Jon Scalzetti in the quarterfinals, but ran into Ian McKenna (New Hartford) in the semifinals and lost, 5-0. As a follow-up, Kellison routed Andy Nicholson (Central Square) 19-5 and edged B’ville’s Jake Naples 3-2 for a third-place finish.
Garrett Bauer also finished third, at 132 pounds, having topped Jerry Nash (Liverpool) 5-4 before falling to New Hartford’s Lucas King 6-2 in the semifinals. King went on to the title and Bauer went on to beat Tyler Patrick (B’ville) 11-2 and hold off Tyler Pitts (Indian River) 3-1 in the consolation bracket final.
Brian Martin (138 pounds) lost in the first round, as did ESM’s Joe Regan, with CBA/J-D’s Tyrig Block stopped in the opening round at 152 pounds.
Neither F-M nor East Syracuse Minoa saw any of its wrestlers get to the title bouts, but the Hornets and Spartans had a handful of place-finishers among the large-school contenders.
Doane, following that semifinal defeat at 170, rebounded with a 5-2 win over West Genesee’s Griffin Sasso, but could not quite get third place, dropping the consolation bracket final to Liverpool’s Will Ronan 7-5
Braden Florcyzk edged Whitesboro’s Matt Blum 3-2 for fifth place at 106, this after falling to Wells in the previous round.
Zach Colon, at 120 pounds, pinned Ejarian Burgin (West Genesee) in the first round before a quarterfinal defeat to Fulton’s Wyatt Willis, the eventual champion. Ali Salem, the no. 4 seed at 145, dropped his first-round match to C-NS’s Anthony DeSimone in a 1-0 decision, while James Ferro (152) lost in the quarterfinals to Central Square’s Phoenix Webb, the eventual champion. Dylan Fort (160) had a quarterfinals defeat to Demong.
ESM had Jeff Loder, at 152, pin Indian River’s Garrett Putnam to reach the semifinals, where he got close to reaching the title bout, but lost a 2-1 decision to Fulton’s Camrin Galvin. Then Loder pinned Nick Gazzillo (C-NS) in 83 seconds before another narrow defeat, 4-3, to Rome Free Academy’s Stephen Hildenbrandt in the third-place bout.
Donovan Marriott got to fifth place at 113 pounds, losing in the quarterfinals but then pinning Tyler Emeterio (Fulton) in 58 seconds and, after a loss to Steve Pascarella (Liverpool), edging B’ville’s Tyler Schardt 6-5 for that fifth spot.
At 285 pounds, two ESM teammates, Ameer Ladd and Chumba Reed, met after quarterfinal defeats. Ladd not only beat Reed 5-3, he topped Spencer Pisaneschi (Rome Free Academy) 3-1 to get to the consolation bracket final where he lost, 11-3, to Dylan Ashwood (Indian River), but still got third place.
Darian Crossman (182 pounds) dropped an 18-11 quarterfinal to Institute of Technology Central’s Naijir Dean, but then went 2-1 in the consolation bracket, capped by a pin of Central Square’s Jamie Battaglia in 2:36 for fifth place.
Joe Monteleone lost his 195-pound quarterfinal to Fulton’s Jon Parrish, 7-3. Alex Leo wrestled at 106, but he lost to Wells 7-0 in the opening round, while Duad Abdullaev (160) also fell in the first round, as did Chris Todd at 220 pounds.
