Area high school wrestling teams did not sit idle during the holiday break, each of them appearing in one large-scale tournament before turning their attention to 2019.
Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA took part last Thursday in the massive Windsor Christmas Tournament, which featured more than 30 teams from across the Northeast.
The Rams tied Suffield (Connecticut) for 14th place with 60 points as Mount Sinai won with 153 points, Tyler Kellison earning the title at 126 pounds.
Kellison got a 15-0 technical fall over Calum Houper (Horseheads) in the quarterfinals and then claimed a 9-8 classic over Indian River’s Logan Patterson in the semifinals.
The final was just as close, Kellison edging Walton/Delaware Academy’s Chandler Merwin by that same 9-8 margin in overtime, improving his season record to 15-2 overall.
No other J-D/CBA wrestler got to the finals, with Adam Honis taking fourth place at 195 pounds as he reached the semifinals before a narrow 3-1 defeat to Mount Sinai’s Mike Sabella. Indian River’s Kyler Martin beat Honis 9-4 in the third-place bout.
Brandon Milham, at 170 pounds, reached the semifinals, too, before Colonie’s Logan Stark pinned him in the third period, but Milham recovered to take fifth place when he Walton-Delaware’s Scotty Barnhart 6-1.
East Syracuse Minoa and Fayetteville-Manlius were both part of the Kenneth Haines Memorial Tournament held last Friday and Saturday at SUNY-Oswego, where the Spartans tied Auburn for 12th in a 30-team field with 81 points and the Hornets had 26.5 points.
Donovan Marriott gave ESM the title at 113 pounds, pinning Canastota’s Kyle Musaschio in 79 seconds to reach the semifinals and then taking 100 seconds to pin Adirondack’s Kyle Webster to reach the title bout, where Marriott got yet another pin, this one over Musaschio’s Canastota teammate, Culley Bellino, in the second period.
Another title for the Spartans went to Ameer Ladd at 285 pounds. Having pinned Ryan Hildenbrandt (Camden) in 3:48 in the quarterfinals, Ladd claimed a 1-0 decision over Canastota’s Mike Leibl to reach the title bout, where against Anthony Oca (Webster Thomas) Ladd, in overtime, got the takedown he needed to win 4-2.
F-M’s Braden Florczyk reach the 120-pound quarterfinals, where he ran into Fulton’s Tom Hughes and got pinned in the second period. as Fulton, with 217 points, was a close second to Niagara-Wheatfield (222 points) for the team title.
The Hornets’ Justin Bedell finished eighth at 145 pounds as teammate Ben Christopher reached the 152-pound quarterfinals, only to take an 8-2 loss to Horace Greeley’s Everett Bueti.
