The combined CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt wrestling team has quickly established itself as one of the best large-school programs in Central New York.
A season ago, four CBA/J-D wrestlers qualified for the state tournament – Myles Griffin, Matt Griffin, Jonah Cavallo and Jake Wright – with Myles Griffin finishing third in the state at 99 pounds and Matt Griffin fourth in the 106-pound division.
Both of the Griffin brothers are back for 2017-18, and CBA/J-D got going last Tuesday by handling its neighbors from Fayetteville-Manlius in a 69-9 decision.
It helped that the Hornets had to forfeit four of the first eight bouts, negating its lone two victories, which came at 170 pounds when James Ferro edged Tyriq Block 5-4 and Andrew Testani (285 pounds) pinned Charles Hemingway in the second period.
Amid those forfeits, J-D/CBA did get two mat wins when Muaweyah El-Hindi (182 pounds) pinned Ronan Pierie in 76 seconds and Adam Honis (220 pounds) got a 17-2 technical fall over Luke Ovadias.
Starting at 113 pounds, J-D/CBA won each of the last seven bouts, with Matt Griffin pinning Braden Florczyk in 97 seconds and Myles Griffin, moved up to 120 pounds, taking just 33 seconds to pin Ben Nosovitch.
Tyler Kellison’s 40-second pin over 126-pound opponent Sam Abreham preceded Aaron Gucciardi (132 pounds) pinning Jon Scalzetti in the third period.
The remaining bouts all went six minutes, with Kevin Huynh, at 138 pounds, beating Justin Bedell 9-3 before Garrett Bauer (145 pounds) handled Ali Salem 9-1 and Alikhan Abdullayev (152 pounds) edging Ben Christopher 4-2.
East Syracuse Minoa opened its season a night later, at West Genesee, and lost to the Wildcats 50-28, despite a strong start as it won four of the first seven bouts.
Ameer Ladd, wrestling at 220 pounds, pinned Randall Ouimet early in the third period. After Logan Cowell’s 3-1 defeat to Shawn Sakran at 285, Christian Moon (99) pinned Jackson Taetsch in 3:27.
Alex Leo won at 113, shutting out Gavin O’Neill 8-0, but after Donovan Marriott’s win over Vincent Calabria in an injury default at 120, the Spartans lost seven of the last eight bouts, the lone exception Garren Kuney’s pin over Devin Earl at 152 with 18 seconds left
F-M was part of Saturday’s Andersen Tournament at Cicero-North Syracuse, where it finished 16th out of 19 sides. Testani got to fourth place at 285, while Florczyk was sixth at 113 and Salem sixth at 145 and Charlie Josephson seventh at 220.
