This might be as exciting an opening stretch as ever put together by the Cicero-North Syracuse wrestling team.
Head coach Dereck Bigford’s Northstars will meet archrival Liverpool Wednesday night in the CNY Counties League opener and, just three days later, will play host to the annual Andersen Tournament, where more than 20 teams, from Section III and beyond, will participate.
To get ready for all this, C-NS got a jump on most of the other local sides by venturing to last Saturday’s Cortland Dual Meet, where it went 4-1 against a quintet of foes.
Only the host Cortland Purple Tigers beat C-NS, by a 42-31 margin. Ahead through eight bouts, the Northstars surrendered that advantage when Cortland won five straight matches from 126 to 152 pounds, clinching matters before Sam Ruiz (160) pinned Reilly Brown in 17 seconds and Jake Claflin (170) edged Jody Leonard 4-2.
Otherwise, C-NS breezed through its other four foes, bashing Ithaca 68-15, handling Spencer-Van Etten 60-25, crushing Oswego 69-3 and rolling past Binghamton 65-18.
Drew Dyer, who wrestled at 120 pounds, earned his team’s Most Outstanding Wrestler honors. Dyer pinned Ithaca’s Honor Meyerhoff in 1:18, took 3:59 to pin Cortland’s Ian George, needed 1:33 to finish off Spencer-Van Etten’s Josh Enright and held off Oswego’s Josh Coleman 10-8, going 5-0 overall.
Joe Mayers and Joe Barber both matched Dyer’s 5-0 mark, while Claflin, David Griglock, Matt Mastro and Sam Ruiz all went 4-1 on the day. David Ciciarelli won all three of his matches, with Nate Langstaff and Jared West both going 3-1.
