A mere 3.5 points ended up separating the Liverpool wrestling team from earning the Section III Class AA championship Saturday at Cicero-North Syracuse.
Instead, the Warriors, with 222.5 points, finished just behind Baldwinsville, who prevailed with 226 points. Liverpool did finish ahead of host C-NS, who had 192 points for third place in the 11-team field, which reversed the Northstars’ 40-30 win from their regular-season encounter on Jan. 25.
Four different Liverpool wrestlers went to the top. None were more impressive than Pat Carroll-Marsh, who stayed unbeaten at 285 pounds (28-0) with quick pins over Central Square’s Robert Harper (20 seconds), Auburn’s Mike Carbonaro (50 seconds) and, in the finals, Institute of Technology Central’s Raymond Bullock (one minute).
Matt Call won at 170 pounds, edging Randy Martin (Central Square) 5-2 in the semifinals as C-NS’s Andrew Osborne won an 11-10 classic over West Genesee’s Evan Stefano in the other semifinal. Call controlled the title match, shutting out Osborne 7-0.
Mende Cukalevski made the 152-pound final with a 3-1 decision over another C-NS wrestler, Kiel Dyer, and then beat Rome Free Academy’s Josh Knapp 7-4 for the title. Tyler Eason won at 132 pounds, pinning Connor Ross (B’ville) in 2:11 in the semifinals and holding off WG’s Connor Grome in a 5-2 title match.
The Warriors had three other chances in finals. At 120 pounds, though, Nate Hathaway ran right into C-NS’s Tony Battista, who dominated a 12-0 decision, while Joe Pizzuto dropped the 182-pound final to CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt’s Ben Honis 8-2. Casey Guilfoil made his way to the finals at 138 pounds, but never was close against CBA/J-D’s Aaron Benedict in a 16-1 technical fall.
Battista was the Northstars’ lone victor, as it lost four championship matches.
Besides Andrew Osborne’s loss to Call, Drew Dyer (99 pounds) fell to RFA’s Dandre Norman 7-0, Joe Copani (113 pounds) had a 14-1 defeat to B’ville’s Tim Sposato and Matt Mastro, in a close 220-pound title match, had an 8-4 defeat to ITC’s Maurice Russell.
For Liverpool, Peter Nash finished third at 99, pinning Jack Hogan (Auburn) in 4:07, while Alex Gilson (285) topped C-NS’s Jared West in a 17-1 technical fall to also end up third. Travis Chewning-Kulick was fourth at 106 pounds, with Luay Ashkar fourth at 126 pounds. Darren Breen was sixth at 145.
C-NS’s Matt Dunham earned third place at 138 when he beat B’ville’s Jake Norton 6-2, and Noah Whritenour (195) got the same spot when he beat West Genesee’s Matt Kemp 4-1.
Jake Murdock (132) and Tom Peterson (145) both finished fourth, the latter in a 5-4 defeat to Central Square’s Dillon Purdy, while Kiel Dyer (152) edged B’ville’s Ryan McArdell by that same 5-4 margin to finish fifth. Sam Ruiz was sixth at 160.
Most of these wrestlers will make their way to Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena to compete in the Section III Division I (large school) championships. It starts at 9 a.m.
