When the Baldwinsville wrestling team went to Dexter for Saturday’s General Brown Duals, it featured a battle between the Bees and one-time rival Fulton, who saw coaching great Mike Conners go to Oswego to take the athletic director’s post, replaced by Chris Stalker.
To its great satisfaction, the Bees defeated the Red Raiders 33-24, by far the best of four wins it would attain in this tournament.
Starting with Vito Caloia’s 4-3 decision over Michael Eddy at 138 pounds, B’ville won five straight early matches to take control. Connor Ross, at 145 pounds, beat Aaron Yablonski 7-3, while Chad McArdell moved up to 152 and got a 6-2 decision over Mike DeMauro.
In yet another six-minute match, Jake Norton (160) topped Travis Race 10-5, while Gunner Sutphen stepped up at 170 to push his way past Ryan Hall 8-6.
Then Joe Nasoni pinned Matt Marshall in 1:06, the start of another streak that included Brian Honsinger (220) shutting out Derek Owen 6-0 and Jake Florack, moved up to 285 pounds, claiming his own 8-6 decision over Brennan Roberge.
Fulton won the next four matches to close the gap to 30-24 with one match left. All that Kevin Paul had to do in his 126-pound finale was avoid a pin from Austin Whitney – which he did by winning a 6-3 decision.
Elsewhere at the meet, B’ville beat Homer 44-28 and romped past Watertown IHC (72-16) and Ogdensburg Free Academy (61-22), but lost the decisive match to host General Brown 53-13. Paul went 5-0 (including a 1-0 decision over Lions star Ryan Snow) and earned Most Oustanding Wrestler honors for his team.
Without much stress, the Baldwinsville wrestling team moved to 2-0 in the CNY Counties League, going to West Genesee last Wednesday night and toppling the Wildcats 57-27.
Three different times, the Bees put together three wins in a row. McArdell opened one of those stretches at 145 by pinning Liam Kotas in 3:13. Ross, at 152, pinned Matt Calascibetta with 39 seconds left in their match and Brian Rush (160 pounds) topped Paul Potosky 11-4.
In another stretch, Florack pinned his 220-pound opponent, Caleb Blasczenski, in just 57 seconds, in between forfeits to Nasoni and Luke Earle (285).
Also, Jeremy Pond’s last-second pin over Mike Linton at 113 pounds capped a stretch where Kevin Lewis, at 99 pounds, finished off Travis Robbins in 1:50 and David Rush (106 pounds) got a forfeit. Paul needed just 1:35 to pin Jon Stefano.
B’ville has a league match Wednesday against Fayetteville-Manlius, three days before another big tournament appearance, this time at the Phoenix Duals.
