On the same Wednesday night, the Fayetteville-Manlius and CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt wrestling teams found themselves unable to keep up with powerful opposition.
For the Hornets, that meant going to Liverpool and taking a 44-27 defeat to the Warriors, while CBA/J-D, wrestling at home, could not topple Fulton and lost to the Red Raiders 36-31.
In F-M’s case, it was one week removed from a big Dec. 4 home win over Central Square that gave it firm control of the CNY Counties League American division.
Now it faced a Liverpool side that announced its status as a National division contender when it beat rival Cicero-North Syracuse on the same night as the Hornets’ win over the Red Hawks.
Where the Warriors would take control is at the extremes, where it won four of five matches in the lowest and highest weight classes, though two of them (at 113 and 120 pounds) were matches that F-M had to forfeit.
In the middle, though, the Hornets had its own 4-1 run, including three pins. Paddy Quinlan, at 152 pounds, needed 1:26 to finish off Anthony Richardson, while Jordan Nelipowitz stepped up at 132 pounds, pinning Devin Delia in 3:38.
Right after that, Luke Rufo (138 pounds) took 15 more seconds than Nelipowitz for his pin over Zach Curcie. Tristan Broddus, who followed Quinlan at 160 pounds, had to go all six minutes, but earned a tough 4-2 decision over Darren Breen.
Elsewhere, Will Khalil (106 pounds) won his own 4-2 match over Sean Nadeau, with Tim Byrnes blanking 195-pound opponent Mark Williamson 4-0. Chris Dobrzynski (182 pounds) had an 8-4 defeat to Louis Ragonese as Jake Okun, at 285 pounds, lost to David Carnie 6-2.
When CBA/J-D took on Fulton, it caught the Red Raiders fresh off its victory over a field of 21 others (including F-M) in the Dec. 7 Andersen Invitational at Cicero-North Syracuse.
In the 220-pound opener, Ben Honis pinned Matt Marshall in 2:51, and two matches later, at 99 pounds, Matt Griffin edged Nick Noel 6-3, this after Ramy Guindy (285) lost to Malachi Manford by that same margin.
But the Red Raiders took control by winning the next five matches, from 106 to 132 pounds. That included two pins and three decisions, the closest coming at 132 when CBA/J-D’s Dustin Harris took an 11-6 defeat to Jonathan Earl.
Matt Lauro (138) broke the Red Raiders’ streak as he handled Tim Holden 19-9, but Fulton clinched matters by winning three of the next four matches, only breaking up when Tucker Benedict (160) pinned Victor Ruenare in 3:40. Though beaten, CBA/J-D did close strong as Mark Friske (182) claimed a forfeit and David Sayre (195) took just 1:22 to pin Noah Gates.
A night earlier, East Syracuse-Minoa lost, 51-24, to Cato-Meridian, but put up its largest point total of the season, and it would get 18 points in Saturday’s Herkimer Invitational, where CBA/J-D rose to third place with 138.5 points, topped only by Mexico (204.5 points) and Camden (196 points) in the 15-team field.
Honis won at 195 pounds, pinning Chittenango’s Justin Cox in 22 seconds in the semifinals before he took just 1:38 to pin Camden’s Thea Casler in the championship match.
Lauro got to the 138-pound final with a second-period technical fall over Oneida’s A.J. Vargas, but lost in the title match to Mexico’s Austin Whitney 9-3. Griffin got third place at 99 pounds when he beat Parker Talbot (Vernon-Verona-Sherrill) 9-0 in the consolation bracket final. Friske (182), Ramy Guindy (285 pounds) and Arsen Bagiryan (126 pounds) each had third-place efforts.
