Gifts and joy each arrived early for the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool wrestling teams last week, and not just because both sides were victorious on the mat against tough SCAC Metro division opponents.
It was announced last Wednesday that the Northstars’ long-time head coach, Dereck Bigford, who retired in 2017, was one of six men chosen for the 2019 class of the Section III Wrestling Hall of Fame.
For his contributions both as a coach and in other aspects of wrestling, Bigford was selected along with wrestlers Derek Pfluger, Sandy Creek) and Rick Koenig (Sherburne-Earlville), plus coaches Neil Freeman (Copenhagen) and Sam Elia (Norwich), plus official Dick Meldrim.
All of this came just as C-NS was at West Genesee and defeating the Wildcats 39-30, while Liverpool, on its home mats, faced Baldwinsville and claimed the last three bouts on the card to knock off the Bees 47-30.
Having already benefited from a trio of early B’ville forfeits, Liverpool had seen its 30-11 lead disappear when the Bees won four straight bouts, the last of them a 113-pound thriller where Rocco DeGiormo lost, 4-3, to Max Naples.
However, the Warriors regained the lead for good with a forfeit to Jeremy Ianno at 120 pounds and clinched a team victory when Jacob Ianno, at 126 pounds, pinned Liam Fitzgerald. Then Charlie Tran (132 pounds) got a 16-0 technical fall over Jaden Prince.
Steve Pascarella had opened the match at 138 pounds with a pin over B’ville’s Cole Accordino. The forfeits to Chris Ianno (152 pounds), Shane Hazelmyer (160 pounds) and Anthony Piscatelli (170 pounds) followed, with the Warriors’ other mat win coming at 220 pounds when Hamier Williams-Borges pinned Will DuBois. Dom Ianno (145 pounds) lost a close 3-1 decision to Nate Hahn.
The match between C-NS and West Genesee also was tied 30-30 late in the match. In the final two bouts, though, the Northstars got ahead of the Wildcats.
At 106 pounds in the penultimate bout, Harrison Portorsnok pinned Matt Murdock in 52 seconds. Since that was C-NS’s eighth win, that clinched the team victory. Dan Sweeney closed at 113 with a tough 6-4 decision over Jackson Taetsch.
Long before that, Jacob Montminy (126) got the Northstars on the board with a 68-second pin of WG’s Gavin O’Neil. Nathan Osborne (132) topped Ejarian Burgin 6-3, with Eric Salenski (138) blanking Eugene Belov 4-0.
Though the Wildcats won three of the next four bouts, Anthony Desimone, at 160, held off Cole Saxon 6-3, setting up a C-NS run in the higher weight classes.
Julian Zavaglia only needed 38 seconds to pin Michael Sarakos at 182, with Adam Rush (195) pinning Peter Dwinell in 84 seconds as Troyan Jones (220) got an impressive 6-4 win over Cole Wade.
