Baldwinsville’s wrestling team, due to its sustained excellence through the years and decades, have proven a regular visitor to the Section III Dual Meet.
So it was again on Saturday at Cicero-North Syracuse, where the Bees again joined the top 16 teams in the area battling it out for local bragging rights.
B’ville got paired into the opening round against Camden, a battle of unseeded teams with a spot in the quarterfinals against top seed Adirondack on the line – and it proved too difficult for the Bees, who lost to the Blue Devils 47-16.
Alex Bowen, in the 220-pound opener, briefly gave B’ville some life with a 10-1 romp over Austin Confer, but Camden answered by winning the next seven bouts.
Zach Hahn (99 pounds) fell to Hunter Williams 9-2, with Jake Naples (106 pounds) falling to Riley Gerber 11-2 and Josh Peck (120 pounds) unable to keep up with Ty Harter in a 12-4 defeat.
David Rush lost a tight 138-pound bout to Dan Alberico 2-1, with Brian Rush (145 pounds) falling to Garrett Mitchell 12-1 before Connor Ross (152 pounds) shut out Joe Musachio 6-0.
Yet Camden closed strong by winning three more decisions. Thor Sutphen, at 160 pounds, took a 4-1 defeat to Dillon Hickey, with John Petrelli (170 pounds) falling to Chad Finch 10-1 and Dan Wicks (182 pounds) taking an 11-2 defeat to Brett Finch.
Camden went on to the quarterfinals, where it lost to top seed Adirondack 45-30, the Wildcats getting all the way to the championship round before Mexico, the no. 3 seed who had topped Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, Central Valley Academy and Liverpool in its early round, defeated Adirondack 40-31 to win the sectional Dual Meet title.
Before all this, B’ville hosted C-NS last Wednesday night in CNY Counties League action, and still fuming about its loss to Liverpool on Jan. 17, the Bees took it out on the Northstars, winning the first eight bouts in a 59-14 romp.
Brian Rush opened at 145 by beating Nick Gazzillo 9-1, but Sam Candee (152 pounds) followed by pinning Josh Bigford late in the first period and Ross took just 51 seconds to pin James Debo.
Sutphen earned a fall at 170, finishing off Anthony Carella in 1:50, and after Nick Stanton (195 pounds) claimed a forfeit, Bowen shut out Austin Miller 12-0 and Mike Spicer, at 285, earned a pin over Chris St. Denny 14 seconds into the third period.
C-NS did win four of the next five bouts, the only exception coming when Kevin Lewis, at 113, used a single escape to pull out a 1-0 decision over Ray Sorenson. Jake Naples (106) lost, 7-4, to David Ciciarelli, with Peck dropping a 20-12 decision to Joe Barber. Then Jeremy Pond (132 pounds) pinned Jacob Hall in 1:51 and David Rush (138) claimed a forfeit to close out the meet.
B’ville would get challenged this week, meeting traditional rival Fulton on Wednesday night and hosting Cortland on Friday to close out the regular season.
