Once more, the Liverpool wrestling team cleaned up against a host of opposition when it swept to a perfect 5-0 record and the team title of the Sara Allen Memorial Duals held Dec. 19 at Groton High School.
To start with, the Warriors routed host Groton 74-12, claiming six forfeits, but also seeing Audey Ashkar (132 pounds), Will Ronan (160 pounds), Jalen Barron (170 pounds), Nick Thomas (182 pounds) and Jack Ragonese (195 pounds) pick up pins. Sean Nadeau, at 120 pounds, blanked Garrett Lockwood 5-0.
An 83-6 romp over Lansing followed, with consecutive pins by Ronan, Barron, Thomas and Ragonese after Jerry Nash (138 pounds), Dylan Wallace (145 pounds) and Zach Curcie (152 pounds) got their own falls. Then Liverpool handled Marathon 66-12 with Barron getting his third consecutive fall as Nash, Dylan Scott (120 pounds) and Sean Nadeau (126 pounds) earned pins, too.
Handling Moravia 67-9, the Warriors saw Barron make it four pins in a row, joined by Nadeau, Ashkar, Nash, Zach Eason (220 pounds), Corey Okun (99 pounds) and Christian Bradshaw (106 pounds) in that category.
The work culminated with Liverpool’s 61-18 victory over Cazenovia, where Nash pinned Patrick Nourse, Curcie pinned Nick Monroe and Barron’s fall over Christian Winkler gave him five pins for the day.
Bradshaw pinned Cole Basic as Eason and Ragonese lost close decisions – Eason to Evan Duskee 2-1, Ragonese to Alex Curr 2-0 – but Wallace, in his toughest bout of the day, claimed a 3-2 decision over Paul McLaughlin.
As this went on, Cicero-North Syracuse tested itself in the Dec. 18-19 North Country Invitational at Indian River, where it finished 13th out of 18 teams with 72 points. General Brown, with 256.5 points, won the event, pulling away from Mexico (198.5 points) and the rest of the field.
None of the Northstars’ wrestlers reached the championship round. Travis Harrington (113) dropped a tough 1-0 semifinal to South Jefferson’s Trey LaFlamme, but recovered to finish third, winning the consolation bracket final over CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt’s Garrett Bauer 4-3.
Chris St. Denny wrestled at 220, unable to keep up in his semifinal with Tom Randall (South Lewis) in a 17-5 defeat, but recovering to win his consolation bracket, too, topping Indian River’s Chris Davis 6-3 for third place. None of the other C-NS wrestlers had top-six finishes.
Now C-NS had to go face Baldwinsville last Wednesday night, and led in the early going before getting overwhelmed by the Bees in a 48-24 defeat.
Through six bouts, the Northstars led 21-9. Partially that was due to forfeits to St. Denny and Devan Flood (99 pounds), but also because Nathan Osborne, at 106, pinned Jacob Cavallo with just 16 seconds left in their bout and Harrington followed up with a 10-6 decision over Zach Hahn.
But when Zach Sweeney, at 120, lost to Jake Naples, it started a B’ville surge where it won eight of the remaning nine bouts, and the last five in a row. Joe Mayers (126) fell to Kevin Lewis 5-0 and Matt Brisson (145) lost, 5-1, to John Eustice, with only Nick Gazzillo (138) breaking through late for C-NS as he blanked Tom Fuzia 6-0.
C-NS and Liverpool both go to SUNY-Oswego Monday and Tuesday for the Kenneth Haines Memorial Tournament.
