Since the Morrisville-Eaton wrestling team again received one of the coveted 16 spots in the annual Section III Dual Meet, staged Saturday at Rome Free Academy, it did not intend to waste the opportunity.
Sure enough, in the opening round, the Warriors would make it through, beating Sandy Creek 37-28 before falling to top seed Phoenix 43-22.
In the Sandy Creek meet, Darren Perry opened at 130 pounds by beating Mason McNitt 7-4. The Comets won the next two matches before Cody Frost showed up at 145 pounds to beat Jessie Drake in a two-period technical fall.
That started a string of seven straight M-E wins. Jordan Doroshenko (152 pounds) beat Jacob Halsey 16-5, with Luke Collier (160 pounds) and Ryan LeBlanc (171 pounds) each earning 37-second pins over, respectively, Ed Scheppard and Tyler Gronau.
At 189 pounds, Dalton Villnave beat John Hamlin 6-3, while Alex Meyers (215 pounds) pinned Logan McNitt in 1:04 and Barney Prince (103 pounds) handled Zach Pfluger 13-3.
This led to Phoenix, who backed up its top seed — but not without an early scare brought to them by the Warriors.
Frost won at 140 pounds when Brandon Colling got injured, while LeBlanc worked his way past Mark Crisafulli 10-0. Villnave pinned Jonathan Rhodes midway through the second period and Meyers took 1:33 to pin Anthony Gandino and give M-E a 22-19 lead.
Phoenix would answer by winning the last six matches on the card, even close contests where Prince fell to Nick Tighe 4-0 and Perry took a 6-5 defeat to Talon Sotherden.
The Firebirds would go on to take the sectional Dual Meet for the second year in a row, topping Holland Patent 52-23 in the semifinals and Fulton 34-24 in the title match.
After going to Sherburne-Earlville on Tuesday night, the Warriors will compete Saturday in the Center State Conference Tournament at Little Falls.
