All through December, the Liverpool wrestling team has made strong showings on the tournament circuit, and Saturday’s Phoenix Round Robin proved no different.
By the time it was done, the Warriors had 147 points, best among the local sides in the 10-team field as Baldwinsville (123.5 points) finished third. It took an outsider, Mattituck, to climb to the top with a total of 193 points.
Liverpool won in four different weight classes, starting at 113 pounds, where Sean Nadeau went to the top spot by shutting out Mattituck’s Thomas Hoeg 12-0. Audey Ashkar had a similar victory at 120 pounds, handling another Mattituck opponent, T.J. Beebe, 16-4 in the finals.
Though it was closer at 132 pounds, Peter Nash shut out Mattituck’s Lucas Webb 3-0 in the championship bout, and David Carnie emerged as the 285-pound champion when he took exactly three minutes to pin Phoenix’s Derrick Button.
All told, the Warriors got into five finals and lost just one of them – at 195 pounds, and even that proved close as Nathaniel Knox fell to B’ville’s Alex Bowen 2-1.
Elsewhere, Mike Mills beat B’ville’s Sam Candee 12-5 for third place at 145 pounds. Jack Ragonese (182 pounds) also got third, edging Greene’s Jeff Westergaard 2-1 for that spot.
Christian Bradshaw (99 pounds), Jerry Nash (120 pounds) and Anthony Ianno (126 pounds) each had fourth-place finishes, with Jalen Barron sixth at 170 pounds and Alan Cary sixth at 220 pounds.
Meanwhile, Cicero-North Syracuse made its own tournament appearance in the North Country Invitational at Indian River, where it finished ninth in an 18-team field with 96.5 points. Mexico, with 271.5 points, pulled away from General Brown (208.5 points) to finish first.
Joe Barber got to the 120-pound semifinal, only to take a 3-2 defeat to Mexico’s Hunter Howland and, eventually, end up in fourth place because General Brown’s Connor Schissler beat him by that exact same 3-2 margin in the consolation bracket final.
David Ciciarelli made his way to fourth place at 99 pounds, falling 5-0 to South Jefferson’s David Garland in the consolation bracket final. Travis Harrington (106) also finished fourth, winning three consolation bracket matches before Mexico’s Austin Reilly pinned him to take third.
Christian Anoceto pinned South Jefferson’s Ryan Haynes in 1:49 to gain fifth place at 220 pounds. Christopher St. Denny, at 285 pounds, also won his fifth-place match, pinning Indian River’s Dylan Ashwood midway thorugh the third period.
