Pat Carroll-Marsh is not one to waste much time on the wrestling mat. The Liverpool heavyweight expects – almost demands – that he take down every opponent and pin them.
That’s led to a 31-0 record in the 2011-12 season and, thanks to his 285-pound victory in Saturday’s Section III Division I meet at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena, he’s on his way to the state meet.
Rarely this season has any of Carroll-Marsh’s matches gone beyond one period. So it was a slight surprise when, in the quarterfinals, Carroll-Marsh was stretched to the third period by Cicero-North Syracuse’s Jared West before getting a fall 15 seconds into that period.
After that, it went much quicker. Against teammate Alex Gilson in the semifinals, Gilson needed barely a minute for the pin and the final against Carthage’s Travis Gibbons was over in just 19 seconds – by far the shortest championship match of the meet.
So Carroll-Marsh will take his undefeated mark to Albany’s Times Union Center, where on Feb. 24-25 the state meet will take place.
With the top seed, the Warriors’ Tyler Eason went to the 132-pound championship round with a pin over Colin VanBuren (APW) and topped Fulton’s Connor Aldasch 13-8 in the semifinals.
But West Genesee’s Connor Grome, who lost to Eason in the Class AA final a week ago, got payback here, edging Eason 4-2, giving Eason just his second loss in 35 matches this winter. In that same weight class, C-NS’s Jacob Murdock finished fourth.
From a team standpoint, Liverpool, with 118.5 points, finished fourth in Division I (large schools), just ahead of C-NS, who was sixth with 106 points. Indian River took the team title with 167.5 points.
Tony Battista was the only Northstars wrestler to reach the championship round, doing so at 120 pounds. Battista (27-5) pinned West Genesee’s Tyler Heggelke in 47 seconds and shut out Liverpool’s Nate Hathaway 4-0 before falling to Indian River’s Derrick Gray 10-2 in the finals.
Gray, as it turned out, was the meet’s Most Outstanding Wrestler. And Hathaway made up for his semifinal defeat by earning third place, routing Brian O’Leary (Watertown) 10-2 in the consolation bracket final.
Gilson, after losing to Carroll-Marsh, also ended up in third after he pinned Raymond Bullock (Institute of Technology Central) in 55 seconds. Mende Cukalevski worked his way to fourth place at 152 pounds, where Kiel Dyer gave C-NS a sixth-place finish
Luay Ashkar, wrestling at 126 pounds, finished sixth for the Warriors. Travis Chewning-Kulick (106 pounds), Joe Pizzuto (182 pounds) and Casey Guilfoil (138 pounds) each lost in the quarterfinals.
Also for C-NS, Andrew Osborne worked his way to third place at 160 pounds. Both he and Liverpool’s Matt Call lost in the semifinals, but made their way to the consolation bracket final, where Osborne squeaked out a 1-0 decision, leaving Call in fourth place.
The Northstars’ Drew Dyer also was third, at 99 pounds, the ninth-grader winning three times in the consolation bracket after a quarterfinal defeat, capped by a fall over Rome Free Academy’s D’Andre Norman in 2:06. Liverpool’s Pete Nash went 1-2, though he lost in the quarterfinals to New Hartford’s Dempsey King.
Matt Mastro was fourth at 220 pounds, going 2-2 on the day, while Tom Petersen (145 pounds) beat Indian River’s Sonny McPherson 6-4 for fifth place. Matt Dunham was fifth at 138, edging Auburn’s Jeff Thurston 2-0 for that spot. Sam Ruiz took sixth place at 160 pounds. Noah Whirtenour (195 pounds) and Joe Copani (113 pounds) both lost in the quarterfinals.
