Both the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool wrestling teams would face defeats during the last CNY Counties League meets of 2012.
In the Northstars’ case, it was a fierce battle against visiting Central Square Wednesday night, but by claiming five consecutive matches in the middle of the contest, the Red Hawks built up enough points to hang on and beat C-NS 40-37.
Due to a pin and forfeit, the Northstars were down 12-0 before getting on the board in the third match at 132 pounds, Joe Caponi handling Joe Mayers 14-4.
Following that up, Jeremy Rivera (138 pounds) handled Mike Byrne by a similar 14-3 margin, and Nate Langstaff (145 pounds) took it even further, beating Nathan Rogers in a 17-2 technical fall, and C-NS briefly took the lead.
That didn’t last long, though. Central Square took charge by getting back-to-back major decisions of its own in between a pair of pins, and then saw Elijah Sampo edge C-NS’s David Griglock 96-3 in the 195-pound match to make it 35-13.
Needing to win every remaining match and get a few pins along the way, the Northstars nearly pulled it off. Matt Mastro (220 pounds) took just 63 seconds to pin D.J. Patchen and, at 285 pounds, Andres Anoceto finished off Cody Stone with 18 seconds left.
That cut the margin to 35-25, but any hope of a victory ended when David Ciciarelli, at 99 pounds, lost to Jacob Garrow in a technical fall. Still, C-NS finished strong as Joe Barber (106 pounds) pinned Chelsy Sanschagrin in 3:41 and Drew Dyer (113 pounds) got a pin over Dylan Wallace in 2:50.
As this went on, Liverpool had to visit first-place Baldwinsville, and their annual league clash saw some early success by the Warriors before the Bees took over in the middle stages and prevailed by a 57-19 margin.
They started at 106, and a match later Audey Ashkar got Liverpool on the board with a 9-1 victory over Jeremy Pond. At 120, Peter Nash pinned Dominick Arcadi in 1:44, and when Mike Mills (132) beat Brandon Schmid 6-2, the Warriors had a 13-11 lead.
B’ville answered the Warriors in the same way that Central Square did against C-NS, by claiming the next five matches with two pins and three decisions. In the closest of those contests, Dakota Inman (160 pounds) took Brian Rush to overtime before a takedown gave Rush the 6-4 win.
Briefly, the Warriors rose again when Connor O’Conner (182) earned a third-period fall over Sam Gosson, but the Bees closed the meet with four straight pins, three of them in under a minute’s time.
The holiday break will see Liverpool go north to SUNY-Oswego for the Kenneth Haines Memorial on Thursday and Friday, just as C-NS travels west to Spencerport, for the Teike-Bernabi Tournament.
