CENTRAL NEW YORK – Staked to the no. 2 seed in the Division I portion of the Section III Dual Meet, the Jamesville-DeWitt/Christian Brothers Academy wrestling team only needed to win once to reach the championship round.
In a six-team field, J-D/CBA had a first-round bye, so it waited and watched as, in the opening round last Tuesday night, the host team, no. 3 seed Fulton, put away no. 6 seed Carthage 45-28.
So it was the Rams against the Red Raiders in the semifinals. With a chance to knock off the most decorated area large-school program, J-D/CBA could not quite pull it off, taking a 34-27 defeat.
These same teams had met Dec. 11 in the Red Ram Duals and J-D/CBA won 31-24, and in the rematch three early pins again got the Rams in front.
Jordyn Hill, at 118 pounds, pinned Kallen Roberts late in the second period. William BeSeth (132 pounds) got a 72-second pin over Elias Reynolds as Mason Porter, at 138 pounds, earned his fall over Bailey Grubb late in the third period.
Fulton then won twice, including a wild 152-bound battle where Gerald Vielhauer lost, 14-12, to John Clohecy, before Andrew Cooney (160 pounds) beat Ashton Gates 5-1 and Enver Bulatov (189 pounds) pinned Aiden Scaringi in 92 seconds.
Ahead 27-22, J-D/CBA knew the last bout would be forfeited so it had to win either of the two contested bouts to hold off Fulton, and nearly got it.
Bryce Dadey, at 215 pounds, battled all six minutes with Kaden Reynnells, yet lost 6-4, and Ben Paul had a similar experience against Logan Murphy at 285 pounds, where Paul took a 7-5 defeat.
After all this, J-D/CBA was able to prevail 54-15 over Central Square last Saturday with pins from Hill, Porter, Cooney, Bulatov, Matt Dougherty (102 pounds) and Nathan Finn (126 pounds) as Vielhauer beat Dante Coppola 9-4 and Garrett Williams, at 145 pounds, got an overtime takedown to beat James Kimpel 8-6.
Fayetteville-Manlius had hosted its own duals on Jan. 15, going 4-1. The Hornets won head-to-head over East Syracuse Minoa 57-18, beat Syracuse 39-26, handled Oswego 60-12 and topped Rome Free Academy 48-23 before a decisive 50-16 defeat to Carthage.
A week later, ESM took part in the Denny Wright Duals at Homer, beating BGAH 42-29, but taking a 64-12 defeat to the host Trojans.
