Two big events for the Baldwinsville wrestling team served as the prelude to its appearance in this Saturday’s Section III Dual Meet at Cicero-North Syracuse.
And that included the dual meet the Bees hosted Saturday, which had two parts to it. One part was the meet itself, where B’ville would go 3-2 as Central Valley Academy, with a 5-0 mark, roared to the top of the standings.
Amid this activity was, during the opening round, a meet against Liverpool rescheduled from a Jan. 7 weather postponement, which now turned into a CNY Counties League first-place showdown – and unlike so many previous encounters, this one went in the Warriors’ favor, by a 34-31 margin.
It was close right from the start as, at 126 pounds, David Rush edged Anthony Ianno 7-6. After Spencer Woods (132 pounds) took a pin, B’ville appeared to take control by winning the next four bouts.
At 138 pounds, Kevin Paul pinned Zach Curcie in 2:54. Connor Ross (145 pounds), who passed 100 career wins at this meet, took 1:15 to finish off Will Ronan, while Steve Petrelli (152 pounds) held off Brian Carr 4-3 and Chad McArdell (160 pounds) pinned Zach Kahtib 48 seconds into the third period.
Now up 24-6, B’ville surrendered a bit of that edge when Devon Buyck (170 pounds) and Alex Bowen (182 pounds) lost decisions, Bowen taking a 4-1 defeat to Nate Knox, who was up from the JV ranks just for this meet.
All looked fine, though, when Gunnar Sutphen, at 195 pounds, blanked Mark Williamson 8-0 and Joe Nasoni (195 pounds) beat Ron Wilson 8-3 to make it 31-13 with five bouts left.
But B’ville did not win again. Heading to its strong spot in the lower weight classes after a forfeit at 285 pounds, Liverpool claimed the next three bouts, none of them more exciting than Tyler Patrick, at 106 pounds, coming within inches of a victory against Sean Nadeau, but losing 12-11 when Nadeau pulled off a reversal in the waning seconds.
That tied it, 31-31, and set up the finale at 120 pounds between the Bees’ Jeremy Pond and the Warriors’ Peter Nash. Pond never got on the board, though, as Nash won 5-0 to help Liverpool, 4-26 a few seasons ago, move to 14-3 for this season.
B’ville also lost to Brockport, 43-29, at the end of the meet. In between, the Bees would handle Batavia 48-37, get past CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt and then beat Holland Patent, each of them 48-33 decisions.
Before this, B’ville had a head-to-head match last Wednesday night against C-NS, the same team it beat by half a point to win the Cazenovia Invitational on Jan. 11. This wasn’t as close, though, as B’ville defeated the visiting Northstars 47-30.
Trailing after Pond lost the opener to Drew Dyer 2-0, B’ville got the first of two unexpected pins from Woods at 132 as Woods finished off C-NS’s Brandon Burnham midway through the second period. Paul and Ross followed with pins – Paul over Joe Copani in 3:13, Ross over Robert Rein in 2:14, while Petrelli fought hard in a 9-5 defeat to Sam Ruiz.
B’ville took control by winning four of the next five bouts, the only exception a tight 10-7 defeat for McArdell to Jerrett Norton at 170.
Buyck, wrestling at 160, pinned Anthony Carella with 58 seconds left. Sutphen (182) rolled past Tom Peterson 10-2 before Josh Stanton (195) pinned Mark Cummings in 2:56 and Nasoni took five fewer seconds to pin Jared West.
From there, C-NS won the next three bouts, but Rush gave the Bees a spectacular finish at 120 pounds, needing only 59 seconds to earn a pin over Jacob Hall.
After the defeat to Liverpool, B’ville faces Central Square Wednesday night and then heads to C-NS Saturday for the Section III Dual Meet, where it faces Canastota in the opening round and could get a shot at Central Valley, the no. 2 seed, if both make the quarterfinals. Matches start at 10 a.m.
