The centerpiece of the Cazenovia wrestling team’s regular season was its annual invitational tournament, held Saturday at Buckley Gym against a strong field that included the Lakers’ close neighbors from Chittenango.
And the hosts did quite well, the Lakers picking up 156 points to finish third out of 17 sides, just behind runner-up Mexico (158.5 points), each of them trailing Baldwinsville, who won with 194 points. Chittenango, with 102.5 points, finished fourth.
For Cazenovia, Alex Curr, at 170 pounds, and John Nannery, at 182 pounds, both emerged as champions in their respective weight classes.
Curr beat Alex Vanry (Sandy Creek) 8-0 in the 170 semifinal, setting up a tight title bout with B’ville’s John Petrelli, which went back and forth before Curr, in a 5-4, grabbed first place.
As for Nannery, he beat another Sandy Creek wrestler, Joe Benedict, 10-4 in the semifinals, leading to a final against Chittenango’s Tony Cutrie, who edged Dalton Elias (West Genesee) 10-7 in his semifinal. This one also proved close, but Nannery did enough to edge Cutrie 7-5.
The Lakers’ heavyweight trio of Kevin Frega (195 pounds), Dan Phillips (220 pounds) and Hayden Polhamus (285 pounds) all lost their respective finals. Frega got closest, against B’ville’s Alex Bowen, taking a 5-4 defeat, while Phillips got pinned in the third period by Oxford’s Garyn Huntley and Polhamus took a fall in 1:52 to Herkimer’s Dan Appley.
Elsewhere for Cazenovia, Will Khalil (113 pounds) beat Gary Lockwood (Groton) 11-4 in the consolation bracket final to finish third, while Alex Nannery (160 pounds) and Brian Silfer (195) each had fourth-place efforts. Matt McLaughlin (120 pounds) beat Jacob Cline (Homer) 6-1 for fifth place, an effort Zack Maxwell (126 pounds) matched by pinning West Genesee’s Mike Linton in 1:20.
The Bears saw Matt Bixby, at 138 pounds, edge B’ville’s David Rush 1-0 to reach the final, only to fall to Oswego’s Austin Coleman 5-1 and settle for second place.
Justin Cox, at 220, beat B’ville’s Mike Spicer 6-3 for third place, just as Will Young (145) blanked another Bees wrestler, Sam Candee, 8-0 in his consolation bracket final and Connor Fredericks (152 pounds) pinned Oswego’s Steve Demong in 3:19 to get his own third-place finish. Wyatt Blanding, at 132 pounds, gained fifth place.
