Cicero — A mere two weeks after he helped the Liverpool football team get within a point of reaching the state Class AA championship game, Audey Ashkar was back on the wrestling mat, inching closer to a personal milestone of 100 career victories.
Ashkar did so by claiming the 138-pound championship in last Saturday’s Andersen Memorial Tournament at Cicero-North Syracuse, an event that served as the season opener for both the Warriors and Northstars.
A season ago, Ashkar won the Section III Class AA and large-school titles at 120 pounds before going 1-2 in his first state tournament appearance in Albany. Now he’s on a quest to get back to the state meet, and the Andersen Tournament provided a first step.
Having grown to 138, Ashkar had a tough semifinal against Dolgeville’s Noah Handy, but prevailed in a 6-2 decision. That set up a final against Greene’s Robert Castle, and Ashkar took control from the outset, eventually pinning Castle with 29 seconds left.
But Ashkar was not the only Liverpool champion in this meet. Freshman Christian Bradshaw won at 99 pounds, pinning Fulton’s Sam Waldron in the quarterfinals in 2:27, shutting out Greene’s Jordan Taft 13-0 in the semifinals and, in the title bout, getting another pin over Spencerport’s Michael Lopresti midway through the third period.
As a team, Liverpool earned 158 points, third in the 19-team field behind Fulton (224.5 points) and Lockport (190 points), while host C-NS had 73 points and settled for 11th place.
The Warriors’ Jalen Barron made the 182-pound title bout by pinning Fulton’s Dylan Gorman in 1:39 in their semifinal match, but then ran into Mike Sutliff (Hadley-Luzerne/Lake George) and lost that final in a first-period pin.
David Carnie lost his 285-pound semifinal to Fulton’s Jared Crucitti, but recovered to beat Owen Albanese (Canastota) 3-1 for third place, while Sean Nadeau (120 pounds) shut out Spencerport’s Mason Wersinger 6-0 to also finish third. Dylan Wallace was sixth at 138 pounds.
continued — As for C-NS, it got two wrestlers into the finals, starting with Travis Harrington at 113 pounds. Harrington edged Canton’s Ryan Brown 3-2 in the semifinals, but in the championship round could not quite keep up with Spencerport’s Tyler Mitchell, losing a 5-2 decision.
Joe Mayers, at 126 pounds, pinned Gideon Jardine (Hadley-Luzerne/Lake George) with 23 seconds left in their semifinal, leading to a title bout where Mayers was unable to get on the board against New Hartford’s Ian McKenna, taking a 3-0 defeat.
No other C-NS wrestler could manage a top-five finish, with Dario Cicarelli getting closest as he got to sixth place at 99.
Zach Sweeney added an eighth-place finish at 120 as the Northstars would host its annual Blindmen’s JV tournament this Saturday, just as Liverpool goes to Churchville-Chili, near Rochester, for the Demeco Trainor Duals after a tune-up Monday against East Syracuse Minoa.
