Wins from Aaron Benedict, J.T. Romagnoli and Ben Honis helped the CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt wrestling earn fifth place in a 10-team field during Saturday’s Section III Class AA championship meet at Cicero-North Syracuse.
Overall, CBA/J-D picked up 133 points, five behind Central Square in the fourth spot. Baldwinsville (226 points) squeaked past Liverpool (222.5 points) for the sectional team title.
Benedict, wrestling at 138 pounds, pinned Nate Rogers (Central Square) in 3:27 and blanked C-NS’s Matt Dunham in a 15-0 technical fall to reach the finals, where he was just as efficient beating Liverpool’s Casey Guilfoil with a 16-1 technical fall that took 4:45 to accomplish.
As for Romagnoli, he would end up facing the top seed, Fayetteville-Manlius’ Tom Quinlan, in the 145-pound finals after Romagnoli beat Tom Peterson (C-NS) 12-6 and Quinlan topped Dillon Purdy (Central Square) 8-1. The title match was closely fought, but Romganoli did a bit more and claimed a 6-3 decision over Quinlan.
Honis, working at 182 pounds, pinned C-NS’s David Griglock and blanked West Genesee’s Matt Nichols 5-0 before a championship match against Liverpool’s Joe Pizzuto, an efficient affair where Honis would win an 8-2 decision to get to the top of the awards podium.
Mark Friske, at 160 pounds, won an exciting semifinal over Central Square’s Jerrett Norton 13-10. The final against B’ville’s Anthony Rafkis was even closer, but Friske had to settle for a 4-3 defeat.
Elsewhere, Arsen Bagiryan (106 pounds) finished in third place when he shut out Liverpool’s Travis Chewning-Kulick 7-0 in the consolation bracket finals. Zach Shapiro (220 pounds) finished fourth, while Lucas Campbell (99 pounds) edged F-M’s Eric Mohr 9-6 for fifth place and Matt Lauro (126 pounds) beat Utica Proctor’s Matt Haddad 6-2 to also finish fifth.
F-M had two chances at titles. Pat Quinlan matched Tom Quinlan’s effort when, in the 126-pound semifinal, he beat B’ville’s Chad McArdell 7-4. Yet Pat’s run ended in the finals, too, where he lost to Rome Free Academy’s Antonio DeLuco, who was named the meet’s Most Outstanding Wrestler. Mohr, Luke Rufo (120) and Jon Hajduk (170) each had sixth-place efforts.
Meanwhile, East Syracuse-Minoa finished sixth out of 10 teams in the Class A championships at Indian River, with 113 points. Fulton took top honors with 235.5 points.
Alex Seamans had the Spartans’ best finish, third at 160 pounds. Beaten 10-4 in the semifnals by Carthage’s Shayne Brady, Seamans rebounded to win the consolation bracket, pinning Tristan Perry (Whitesboro) in 2:41 for third.
Five other ESM wrestlers – Jeremy Murphy (120), Sam LeGro (126), Eric Spero (170), Cody Loope (195) and Jon Britton (220) – worked their way to fourth place. Alex Moss, at 182, edged Jim Laurenzo (New Hartford) 1-0 for fifth place as Jon Fannetti (99), Kevin Morris (138), Matt Grosso (170) and Joe Rosaschi (220) all had sixth-place efforts.
All of the above wrestlers have qualified for this Saturday’s Section III Division I (large school) championships, which start at 9 a.m. at Onondaga Community College’s brand-new SRC Arena.
