Thanks to the dominance of Audey Ashkar, the Liverpool wrestling team is assured of having one representative at Albany’s Times Union Centter on Feb. 27-28 for the state championship meet.
Ashkar won the 120-pound title during last Saturday’s Section III Division I tournament at SRC Arena, the only Warriors wrestler able to get to the top spot on the podium despite having three finalists.
And that had a lot to do with Liverpool finishing second in the team standings, with 154 points, edging out Baldwinsville (152.5), like it had done in the AA meet, but not quite able to catch Fulton, who won with 173.5 points. Cicero-North Syracuse finished 10th, with 70.5 points.
During his first two rounds, Ashkar, the top seed, barely spent a minute on the mat. In the quarterfinals, he pinned Carthage’s Cody Hancock in 36 seconds, and then worked even faster in the semifinals, needing just 27 seconds to pin Fulton’s Adam DeMauro.
The final was far more difficult. Indian River’s Tucker Amato went far beyond the opening minute and, in fact, only trailed Ashkar 2-1 in the second period. But then Ashkar’s quickness and skill took over, and he piled up points until he had beaten Amato 11-1 to win the sectional title and improve to 42-3 on the season.
David Carnie, wrestling at 285 pounds, got close to a sectional title. After pinning Ethan Coates (West Genesee) in 37 seconds and winning a tough 7-5 semifinal over Whitesboro’s Joe Madonia, Carnie and the top seed, Carthage’s Erik Jessell, were 2-2 in the third period, but Jessell’s late takedown gave him a 4-2 decision, Carnie’s record falling to 37-4.
Pete Nash, at 132 pounds, had bashed B’ville’s Jeremy Pond 11-1 in the semifinals to get to a title bout with New Hartford’s Dempsey King. Thanks to a second-period takedown, Nash tied King, 2-2, only to see King escape, and then get another escape in the third period. Unable to tie it again with a late takedown, Nash lost, 4-2, just his third defeat of the winner against 44 victories.
Nate Knox, at 195 pounds, dropped a frustrating 2-1 semifinal to B’ville’s Alex Bowen (the man he beat in the sectional AA title bout), but did recover to finish third, edging past Fulton’s Noah Gates 3-1 in the consolation bracket final.
Alan Cary made the semifinals at 220, only to fall to Caleb Null (Carthage) and ultimately take fourth place, the same fate as Anthony Ianno, who at 126 pounds ran into Fulton’s Mitchell Woodworth in the semifinals and lost an 8-0 decision before dropping a 6-4 consolation bracket final to Whitesboro’s Jeff Marraffa
Jalen Barron (170 pounds) ran into Fulton’s Travis Race and lost in the semifinals before he beat West Genesee’s Shayne Middleton to finish fifth. Zach Khatib, with the no. 3 seed at 160 pounds, lost a tough 3-2 quarterfinal to East Syracuse Minoa’s Sam Legro. Anthony Richardson (152 pounds) did not make it out of the opening round.
For C-NS, only Ray Sorenson, at 106 pounds, reached the finals. Sorenson pinned Connor Funck (Carthage) in the third period and edged B’ville’s Jake Naples, 2-1, in the semifinals, but ran right into New Hartford sensation Kelan McKenna in the finals and got pinned in 51 seconds. McKenna went on to share Most Outstanding Wrestler honors.
Joe Barber, who had the top seed at 113 pounds and won the sectional meet at 106 a year ago, lost this time in the semifinals to CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt’s Tyler Kellison 13-6, but he recovered in the consolation bracket, routing B’ville’s Kevin Lewis 12-2 and topping Liverpool’s Sean Nadeau 5-1 to gain third place as Nadeau settled for fourth place.
At 99 pounds, Travis Harrington scored 37 points in two early-round wins over Dan Tauroney (New Hartford) and Garrett Bauer (CBA/J-D) before a 13-7 defeat to Fulton’s Joe Abelgore in the semifinals.
As Abelgore went on to win the title, Harrington ended up in the fifth-place match against his own teammate, David Ciciarelli, who had lost in the quarterfinals to Abelgore. They went all six minutes, and Harrington prevailed 6-1 to get that fifth spot.
C-NS also had Chris St. Denny pin teammate Jared Hemingway to finish fifth at 285. Christian Anoceto lost in the quarterfinals at 220. Josh Bigford lost his opening-round bout at 152 pounds, as did Jacob Hall at 126.
