For one remarkable hour in Saturday night’s Section III Division I tournament at SRC Arena, the Baldwinsville wrestling team could not lose.
Ten times, Bees’ wrestlers took part in third or fifth-place matches. Every single time, B’ville emerged with a victory, a better spot on the awards podium and points toward possible team honors at night’s end.
However, with just one wrestler (Alex Bowen) who reached the finals, B’ville had to settle for third place with 152.5 points, just 1.5 points behind Liverpool among the large schools as Fulton, with 173.5 points (including four finalists and two sectional champions), took the top spot.
Bowen’s path to the 195-pound title bout started in the quarterfinals, where he fought past Auburn’s Julian Bernard 2-0. Then, in the semifinals, he had a rematch of the Class AA final against Liverpool’s Nate Knox, and this time Bowen won, going to overtime to pull out a 2-1 decision.
The final, pitting Bowen against Carthage’s Kade Andrews, was a long standoff. The difference was that, in the second period, Andrews, starting on the bottom, barely escaped Bowen’s tight grasp, and that single point made the difference as Andrews prevailed, 1-0. Bowen’s record went to 31-8.
So, for the first time since 2011, B’ville did not have a sectional champion advance to the state meet Feb. 27-28 at Albany’s Times Union Center, but it saw five different wrestlers win their respective consolation brackets.
Connor Ross had to go through two rounds at 152 pounds, winning them both, before a frustrating semifinal where he lost a 3-2 decision to Watertown’s Daesean Williams. But Ross recovered, pinning Jacob Bailey (Fulton) in 28 seconds and finishing off Steve Demong (Oswego) in 3:42 for a third-place effort and improving to 33-4 on the season.
At 145 pounds, Brian Rush and Sam Candee both lost in the semifinals – Rush to the eventual champion, Tristan Broddus (Fayetteville-Manlius), Candee to Zach Hunt (Watertown) – and then Candee beat Nick Lavin (Watertown) 2-0 and Collin Flynn (Fulton) 9-3. Flynn had beaten Rush 11-5, but Rush turned around to pin Lavin in 3:57 for fifth place.
Much the same thing happened at 120 pounds, in that Josh Peck took third place and Tyler Patrick was fifth. Peck lost in the semifinals to Indian River’s Tucker Amato, but won from there, pinning Fulton’s Adam DeMauro in the consolation bracket final as Patrick, who lost in the quarterfinals, wrapped up his day by getting past CBA/J-D’s Shane Smith 9-5 for fifth place.
Jeremy Pond made it to the 132-pound semifinals before Liverpool’s Pete Nash beat him 11-1. Then Pond shut out Auburn’s Hunter Duger 5-0 and, in the third-place match, held off CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt’s Jonah Cavallo by a single point, 3-2.
Jake Naples wrestled at 106 pounds, making it to the semifinals, and almost beating Cicero-North Syracuse’s Ray Sorenson before losing a 2-1 battle. Recovering from there, Naples made it to the consolation bracket final and then pinned West Genesee’s Cole Wade in 1:19 to finish third.
Thor Sutphen, at 160 pounds, went 2-1 in his consolation bracket, edging Liverpool’s Zach Khatib 2-1 and, in the fifth-place match, holding off Oswego’s Jordan Perchway 6-5. David Rush, who lost in the quarterfinals at 138 pounds, managed to pin Indian River’s Kaden Brown to get fifth place after a 6-2 defeat to Liverpool’s Mike Mills.
Kevin Lewis, at 113 pounds, lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champion Ian McKenna (8-1), but went 2-1 after that, capped off by a 14-6 decision over Carthage’s Tony Campbell in the fifth-place match.
Jake Wicks wrestled at 182 pounds, losing in the quarterfinals to Carthage’s Bryce Reed in a technical fall. John Petrelli (170 pounds) did the same as Indian River’s Sonny McPherson pinned him on the way to a first-place finish as Zach Hahn (99 pounds) lost in the opening round to McPherson’s teammate, Tyler Pitts.
