Now it was time for the Cazenovia and Chittenango wrestling teams to pursue Section III titles, and they would do so in two separate venues.
For the Lakers, it meant traveling to General Brown, in Dexter, for Saturday’s Class C sectional meet, and with Brad Lucas going to the top spot at 285 pounds, Cazenovia rose to fifth place in the 13-team field.
All told, Cazenovia gained 124.5 points, a half-point behind fourth-place Canastota (125 points) as Adirondack, with 204 points, edged South Jefferson (203.5 points) by that same half points for the team championship.
Lucas began his run by pinning Isaiah Mann (Onondaga) in 1:40, and then survived a tough semifinal with Adirondack’s Kierstan Armstrong, 4-2. Then, in the title match, Lucas and Canastota’s Jacob Morris went to the wire, but Lucas held on to win a 3-2 decision.
Two other Lakers, Will Shephard (106 pounds) and Mike Nourse (170 pounds), made it to the finals. Shephard blanked Alex Wilcox (General Brown) 13-0 and pinned Stone Lutz (Adirondack) in 325 to reach the title bout, only to fall to Herkimer’s T.J. Philpotts 6-1.
As for Nourse, he got a 54-second pin over Pat Greenfield (Skaneateles) before a memorable semifinal against his own teammate, John Nannery, that went back and forth before Nourse pulled it out 15-13. That took something out of Nourse, for in the final against Hannibal’s Derek Hilton, he did not register a point and lost a 4-0 decision.
Nannery went on to finish fourth at 170, falling in the consolation bracket final to Marc Grogan (Holland Patent) 7-6. Still, he and Hayden Polhamus, the fourth-place finisher at 195 pounds, earned automatic berths in this Saturday’s Section III Division II championships at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena, joining Lucas, Shephard and Nourse.
Elsewhere, Brian Silfer earned fifth place at 182 pounds, pinning Holland Patent’s Matt Williams in 54 seconds for that spot, while Dan Phillips claimed sixth place at 195 pounds.
Chittenango, meanwhile, took a much shorter trip for the Class B sectional meet, to Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, and finished ninth in the 12-team field with 73 points, far off the winning total of 213 points that Central Valley Academy posted.
Two different Bears wrestlers finished third and advanced to the overall sectional meet. Justin Cox, who lost in the 210-pound semifinals, rebounded to take the consolation bracket win pins over Derick Powell (Phoenix) and Jesse Hendrick (Central Valley), while Casey Placito, at 285, followed a quarterfinal defeat with a 3-0 finish, pinning Nic Edmond (Cortland) in 1:47 in the third-place bout.
Will Young worked his way to fourth place at 138 pounds. Connor Fredericks pinned Phoenix’s Zach Carlson in 1:49 for fifth place at 126 pounds, with Tony Cutrie (182 pounds) also getting fifth place by pinning Cortland’s Dakoatah Miller in 59 seconds. Matt Bixby, at 132 pounds, finished sixth.
This followed the Bears’ meet last Thursday against the combined team from Altmar-Parish-Williamstown/Pulaski, which it won by a comfortable 51-26 margin.
After losing the first two bouts, Chittenango took five in a row, starting with Nick Harrington (170 pounds) pinning Ed Wallis in 3:49. Matt Theobald (182 pounds) took 3:30 to pin Cody Lambert, while Cutrie earned his pin over Hunter Hilton midway through the third period.
Cox (220 pounds) took a forfeit, as did Cooper Young (106 pounds). In between those events, though, Placito got a 31-second pin over Jacob Friot. Wyatt Blanding won a tight 126-pound bout over Nate Cronk 5-4, with Alex Ballinger (132 pounds) pinning Alex Lewis in 1:42 and Bixby taking six more seconds to finish off Kelton Lewis.
