Where CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt wrestlers J.T. Romagnoli and Ben Honis delivered as top seeds in last Saturday’s Section III Division I championship meet, Fayetteville-Manlius stars Pat and Tom Quinlan could not quite finish it off.
Those were the takeaways from a wild day of action at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena, where the combined CBA/J-D unit rose to third place with 111 points, trailing only Baldwinsville (145.5 points) and Fulton (143.5 points) in a 19-team field.
Just behind them, F-M had a strong showing, too, earning 106.5 points for sixth place as it put eight wrestlers on the awards podium, two more than CBA/J-D. East Syracuse-Minoa was 14th with 51 points.
The difference was that CBA/J-D twice went to the top, starting with Romagnoli at 145 pounds as he won his third consecutive sectional title.
After beating Brian Rush (B’ville) 15-4 and blanking F-M’s Tristan Broddus 3-0 in the semifinal, Romagnoli faced ESM’s lone finalist, Kyle Parella, who had pinned Noah Christianelli (Auburn) and stunned no. 2 seed Chad McArdell (B’ville) 6-4 to get this far.
Romagnoli proved too tough for Parella, though, getting several takedowns on his way to an 11-4 decision as he improved to 32-6 and will make a return trip to Albany’s Times Union Center for the Feb. 22-23 state meet. Broddus would claim fourth place for the Hornets.
Honis is going to Albany, too, with a 39-3 record as the 195-pound sectional champion. From his top seed, Honis pinned Matt Marshall (Fulton) in 47 seconds and fought off Syracuse’s Dalton Nyumah 5-2 to reach the title match.
There, Honis pinned New Hartford’s Jimmy Laurenzo 47 seconds into the second period, one of just four falls in the championship round.
Fresh off his Most Outstanding Wrestler run at the sectional Class AA meet, Pat Quinlan, the top seed at 132 pounds, used a technical fall over Anthony Inman (Whitesboro) and a pin over Joe Copani (Cicero-North Syracuse) to get to the finals against West Genesee’s Connor Grome, the defending champion, whom Quinlan beat 3-0 in the AA finals.
The rematch proved quite different, though, as Grome got early and late takedowns to prevail, 7-3, dropping Quinlan to 32-10, a fate that his older brother, Tom, hoped to avoid as the top seed at 152 pounds.
After easy wins over B’ville’s Steve Petrelli (16-4) and Whitesboro’s Travis Eberley (10-1), Tom Quinlan found himself up against Rome Free Academy’s Josh Knapp in the finals. Knapp got an early takedown and, despite all of Quinlan’s efforts, held on to claim a 3-2 decision, leaving Quinlan to hope his 35-4 record is good enough for a wild-card state meet berth.
Another top seed, CBA/J-D’s Mark Friske, beat F-M’s Mark King, 7-1, in the 170-pound semifinals, only to run into impressive Indian River freshman Sonny McPherson in the title match, who nearly pinned Lauro in the first period en route to claiming a 9-0 victory, dropping Friske’s record to 31-6.
Also for CBA/J-D, Zach Shapiro, at 220 pounds, earned fourth place following a semifinal defeat to Syracuse IT’s Maurice Russell. Matt Lauro, at 138 pounds, beat Tim Holden (Fulton) 9-1 for fifth place.
Cole Murphy (113 pounds) and Arsen Bagiryan (120 pounds) both lost in the quarterfinals. George Kassis (182 pounds) and Andrew Zimble (285 pounds) each fell in the first round.
F-M’s Tim Byrnes lost in the quarterfinals at 160 pounds, but rebounded with three wins in the consolation bracket, capped by a pin over Liverpool’s Dakota Inman at 4:07 to snare third place for the Hornets.
Byrnes’ teammate, Jon Hajduk, took the exact same path at 182 pounds. Though he was beaten in the quarterfinals, Hajduk roared to third place, beating CBA/J-D’s Kaalar Wynn 3-1 in the consolation bracket final, leaving Wynn to settle for fourth place.
Chris Bortel, at 195, beat E.J. Sampo (Central Square) 6-5 for fifth place, with Jacob Norton (138 pounds) blanking C-NS’s Jeremy Rivera 5-0 for his own fifth-place podium finish. Luke Rufo (126 pounds) finished sixth, as did Mark King at 170. Will Khalil (99 pounds) lost in the opening round.
ESM’s Steve Loder took third place at 152 when he blanked Eberley 5-0 in the consolation bracket final, whle Alex Moss (182) earned fifth place with an 8-4 victory over West Genesee’s Dalton Elias. Alex Seamans (160) lost in the quarterfinals as Joe Fannetti went 0-2 at 106 pounds and Ed Young (220) lost in the first round.
