While the rise of the Liverpool wrestling team was well-known long before Saturday’s Section III Dual Meet, what the Warriors did on the mats at Cicero-North Syracuse was show everyone on the local scene just how far it had come.
Unseeded at the outset of this gathering of Central New York’s 16 top teams, Liverpool made it all the way to the semifinals, and it took the eventual champions from Mexico to knock them out.
It was hard to top the opening round, though. Up against no. 2 seed General Brown, the Warriors built a big lead and then held on by the thinnest possible margin to stun the Lions 34-33.
The importance of Alan Cary’s opening 4-3 win over Jacob Joanette at 220 pounds would grow as the match went on. David Carnie (285 pounds) pinned Jacob Beckwith with 25 seconds left in their bout to give the Warriors a quick 9-0 lead.
Two GB pins followed, but then Liverpool won four in a row. It started with Sean Nadeau (113 pounds) beating Tyler Martinez 10-3 and continued with Audey Ashkar (120 pounds) pinning Justin Murray in 1:36, Anthony Ianno (126 pounds) edging Connor Schissler 3-2 and Peter Nash (132 pounds) routing Wyatt Dees by a 15-3 margin.
When Mike Mills (145 pounds) pinned Ricci Nitali near the end of the first period and Zach Khatib (152 pounds) shut out Patrick Koelmel 6-0, Liverpool had a 34-15 lead with four bouts left. The lead looked comfortable – but it was not.
Quick pins by the Lions in the next two bouts made it 34-27, and now Jalen Barron, at 182 pounds, and Nathaniel Knox, at 195 pounds, had to avoid majority decisions, technical falls or pins. They did so, Barron falling to Gavin Kovalik 6-2, and Knox only taking a 9-5 defeat to Riccardo Dawkins, GB only getting six points when it needed eight to win.
With that, the Warriors were off and running. Minutes later, Liverpool faced Phoenix in the Dual Meet quarterfinals and didn’t need any late heroics, rolling past the Firebirds 38-29, a bigger margin than the 37-33 victory over that same Phoenix side at the Liverpool Duals a week earlier.
Carnie opened it by pinning Derek Button. Then, starting at 106 pounds, Liverpool won five straight bouts to break out of a 6-6 tie to move ahead for good.
Christian Bradshaw started the surge, pulling away from Bryan Byrns 9-2. Then Nadeau rolled past Toby McKeen 11-2, with Askhar pinning Ryan Dolbear, Ianno beating Zach Carlson 7-3 and Nash getting an 11-6 decision over Ross McFarland.
Though Phoenix countered with a pair of wins including Anthony Richardson’s narrow 6-5 defeat to Ethan Harrington at 152 pounds, Mills still beat Seth Gilbert 13-4. And when Khatib beat Chris Harrington 9-2 and Barron pinned Jesse Duncan, the Warriors clinched the team victory.
Now it was Liverpool against Mexico in one Dual Meet semifinal, with top seed Adirondack against Fulton in the other. As the Wildcats rallied with pins in the last two bouts to edge the Red Raiders 40-39, the Warriors’ remarkable run ended, too, in a 37-34 defeat to the Tigers.
Bradshaw opened at 99 pounds by blanking Dean Shambo 6-0, only to have Alex Jorgenson (106) fall to Austin O’Reilly and Nadeau take a 16-4 defeat to Mexico star Theo Powers.
Down 10-3, the Warriors pulled even when Ashkar beat Hunter Howland 15-7 and Ianno topped Brent Sawyer 8-2. An exchange of pins followed, Devin Delia (132) taking a loss to Mitch Shambo, but Nash getting a fall over Trevor Allard.
Liverpool broke the 16-16 tie when Mills got a 5-2 decision over Brandon Gacey, but the Tigers responded with a decisive four-bout win streak. Richardson, Barron and Jack Ragonese (182) all got pinned, with Khatib taking a 5-1 defeat to Jay Kissilstein.
Now trailing 37-19, Liverpool had to get pins in the remaining three bouts. Knox, though, could only manage a decision over Brandon Gracey at 195, and Mexico advanced to the finals, content to forfeit the remaining two matches to Cary and Carnie.
Mexico went from there to defeating Adirondack 40-33 in the championship round, the Tigers overcoming an early 12-8 deficit to the Wildcats with wins in seven of the eight bouts from 132 to 195 pounds, three of them pins.
