Yet again, Cicero-North Syracuse served as a host for a big wrestling event, in this case Saturday’s Section III Class AA championship meet.
The host Northstars put up 156.5 points and finished third, just behind runner-up Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA (162.5 points) as Baldwinsville won with 235 points. Liverpool, earning 105 points, was sixth in the 10-team field.
C-NS prevailed in the lightest and heaviest weight classes. Joe Barber got the title at 99 pounds, topping B’ville’s Kevin Lewis in a technical fall to reach the final, where Jacob Garrow (Central Square) could not stop Barber as he earned an 8-2 decision.
Anoceto, meanwhile, conquered the 285-pound division, beating Liverpool’s David Carnie 7-1 in the semifinal before a close title match with B’ville’s Luke Earle that saw Anoceto pull it out 7-6. Carnie pinned Cody Stone (Central Square) in 5:18 to finish third.
Liverpool’s lone victory came from Audey Ashkar at 106 pounds. With a bye straight to the semifinals, Ashkar beat B’ville’s David Rush 9-3 and, against C-NS’s Joe Mayers in the finals, took control there, too, winning by a 9-4 margin.
Drew Dyer gave C-NS a second-place finish at 113 pounds, reaching the finals by pinning the Warriors’ Pete Nash in 5:15 before running into Rome Free Academy’s D’Andre Norman and falling to Norman 12-4 as Nash got fourth place.
The Northstars also saw Jeremy Rivera (138 pounds), beaten in the semifinals, rally to top West Genesee’s Jon Stefano 14-4 for third place. Joe Copani (132 pounds) worked his way to fourth place. Anthony Carella (152 pounds) claimed sixth place, as did Sam Ruiz (160 pounds), David Griglock (195 pounds) and Matt Mastro (220 pounds).
For Liverpool, Dakota Inman (160) beat B’ville’s Jake Norton 5-3 to finish in third place, with Ron Wilson (220) also third after edging another Bees wrestler, Jake Florack, in a 2-1 decision. Darreen Breen, at 145 pounds, was fourth, ahead of C-NS’s Nate Langstaff in sixth place.
Just behind them for the Warriors, Bryan Merrill took fifth at 170 pounds, pinning Nathan Brown (Syracuse) for that spot. Sean Nadeau was sixth at 99 behind Barber, while Anthony Ianno (120 pounds) also took third place.
Three nights earlier, C-NS had met CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt in a head-to-head match, winning the first four matches to build a big early margin and hanging on for a 40-34 victory.
Anoceto started the meet by pinning Andrew Zimbal midway through the second period. Joe Barber (99) was quicker, pinning Shane Smith in 2:29, and after a forfeit to Joe Mayers (106), Drew Dyer (113) made it 24-0 when he pinned Cole Murphy in 1:53.
A pair of forfeits cut the margin to 24-12, but Copani edged past Matt Lauro 5-1 and Rivera earned a key victory, holding off Lucas Rowe 10-8 before Robert Rein (145) recorded a 56-second pin over Mosab Ahmad.
Ruiz clinched the meet title at 160 when he tore past Muhammad Qubaisy-Aly 12-4. Though CBA/J-D won the last three matches, Griglock managed to go all six minutes with Kaalar Wynn in a 6-4 defeat, preventing CBA/J-D from making it all the way back.
With the Class AA meet behind them, C-NS and Liverpool both would make their way to Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena this Saturday for the Section III Division I (large school) championships. Matches start at 10 a.m., with the winners in each weight class guaranteed berths in the Feb. 22-23 state meet in Albany.
