A great week for the Skaneateles wrestling team that had already included a key OHSL Liberty division win over Hannibal got even better with the Lakers’ victory in last Saturday’s Port Byron Mid-Winter Tournament.
In a close race at the top, the Lakers, with 160.5 points, edged Cicero-North Syracuse (159 points) for the top spot, while Marcellus, who beat Skaneateles in a head-to-head meet in mid-December, taking third place with 155 points.
Four different Skaneateles wrestlers finished in the top spot. J.W. Simmons dominated at 106 pounds, capped by a final where he pinned Cazenovia’s Jacob Wells in 41 seconds, while at 132 pounds Joey Brillo won by handing Cazenovia’s Matt McLaughlin his first defeat of the season with a pin late in the third period.
Moving to 170 pounds, Pat Greenfield eased his way to the finals, only to get a major challenge from Geneva’s Adam Mateo, who led 5-1 before Greenfield rallied with six straight points, the last of them in the waning seconds to pull out a 7-5 decision. Joey McIntyre won at 195 pounds when he beat Auburn’s Mike Hamilton 5-1 in their title bout.
Matt Goetzmann’s third-place finish at 138 pounds was just as important to the team outcome. Beaten in the first round 3-2 by Port Byron’s Tyler Parker, Goetzmann rebounded to reach the consolation bracket final, where he survived two overtimes to edge Marcellus’ Josh Widrick.
James Leubner matched Goetzmann in that he lost in the first round, but roared back to finish third at 152 pounds when he beat Geneva’s Joe Taylor 4-2 in the consolation bracket final. Ian Frackelton was third at 182 pounds by taking a 2-0 decision over Ithaca’s Alder Flecker.
Christian Daley beat Austin Freer (Mynderse Academy) for fifth place at 126 pounds. Josh O’Hara (160 pounds) and Hannah Drake (99 pounds) recorded sixth-place finishes.
Before all this, Skaneateles went into first place in the league standings last Wednesday by beating Hannibal 60-30.
What was more impressive about the victory was that the Lakers spotted Hannibal a 12-0 lead. They started at 285 pounds with a forfeit to Justice Dann, and Drake lost to Tyler Murray in a second-period fall.
However, Hannibal had to forfeit the next two bouts to Simmons (113 pounds) and Chris Choay. That tied it 12-12, though Preston Blake (120 pounds) got pinned in 51 seconds by Shawn Totman, putting the Warriors back in front, 18-12. Daley required 93 seconds to pin Ben Dennison. Brillo finished off Joe Cerrillo in 86 seconds as Robert Danforth, wrestling at 138 pounds, took a 40-second defeat to Zach Williams.
Then, with the score 24-24, Skaneateles won six consecutive bouts to snare the team title. Goetzmann began the surge with a second-period fall over Doug Clark, while Leubner got his pin over Ed Lamb in just 83 seconds.
A second-period fall by O’Hara over Logan Fenske preceded Frackelton needing just 28 seconds to finish off Nate Hughes. Though not as quick, Greenfield got his pin over Zach Dunbar in 85 seconds as McIntyre, moving up to 220 pounds, pinned Art Donahue early in the second period.
