David Carnie and Audey Ashkar carried the banner for the Liverpool wrestling team as they both ventured to Albany’s Times Union Center to compete in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet.

Carnie, who finished second in the sectional meet at 285 pounds to Carthage’s Erik Jessell but earned an at-large berth to the state meet thanks to his 38-4 record, saying that he was determined to show that the bid was a wise one.

“I just want to prove that I deserve to be there,”

Like Ashkar, Carnie played football in the fall, as a top lineman. He said the two sports go hand-in-hand, with the power used in football applicable to wrestling and the footwork needed to succeed on the mat transferring over to the gridiron.

Carnie faced a big challenge in the opening round against Massena’s Nolan Terrance, who had pinned him in the finals of the Andersen Tournament Dec. 6 at Cicero-North Syracuse. There wasn’t a fall this time, but though he lasted all six minutes, Carnie could only manage a single escape and takedown as Terrance won an 8-3 decision.

Yet Carnie flourished in the consolation bracket. First, he pinned Burnt Hills’ Jake Warren 36 seconds into the third period. Then, later on Friday night, Carnie faced Roosevelt’s Monair McDonald and pinned him, too, taking just three minutes to do so.

Still alive on Saturday, Carnie was one win from a podium finish. Up against Johnson City’s Nikola Cejic, he pushed through six minutes of wrestling into overtime, but a takedown in that extra period helped Cejic prevail by a 4-2 margin.

Eventually, Cejic finished sixth – but more importantly, Carnie had fallen in the first round to the eventual state champion as Terrance edged John Glenn’s Edwin Rubio 2-1 in the title bout.

Ashkar, in sweeping to the 120-pound Section III Division I title this winter with a 39-3 record, carried over his skills from the football field, where he was a tough fullback in the Warriors’ run to the sectional final.

Having weighed 145 pounds in the fall, Ashkar brought down his weight and got big help along the way from tough practice sessions with teammate Pete Nash, who just missed his own sectional title at 132 pounds by a single point to New Hartford’s Dempsey King.

“We beat the (tar) out of each other,” said Ashkar.

Minisink Valley’s Gerard Daly served as Ashkar’s opening-round opponent on Friday morning. They went through a scoreless first period, and then Ashkar, on top, kept Daly on his knees in the second period, preventing an escape.

The third period proved a wild one. Daly escaped for the bout’s first point, but Ashkar got a takedown to take a brief 2-1 lead before Daly reversed it and then added two more points in the waning seconds, giving Ashkar a 5-2 defeat.

Now in the consolation bracket, Ashkar made it through one round, defeating Niagara Falls’ Donny McCoy 3-1. Another close bout followed, against McCoy’s Section VI teammate, Anthony Argentieri (Kenmore West), but this time Ashkar could not quite pull off a win, Argentieri prevailing 7-5.

As with Carnie’s consolation bout opponent, Argentieri went on to a sixth-place finish, but no one at 120 was stopping Hilton superstar Yianni Diakomihalis, who won his third state championship by pinning Plainview’s Peter Pappas in the finals – and Diakomihalis is just a sophomore.