A new year has started, and important meets awaited each of the area’s trio of high school wrestling teams.
For West Genesee, that meant going to the Fallen Heroes Tournament last Saturday and taking third place in a 14-team field with 171.5 points. Only Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA (245.5 points) and the host Canastota Raiders (181 points) did better.
Two Wildcat wrestlers earned individual titles. At 120 pounds, Nate Wade handled J-D/CBA’s Luis Martinez with a technical fall in the semifinals and then, in the title bout, pinned Canastota’s Evan Austerman in 3:27.
Up at 160 pounds, Devin Earl needed just 74 seconds to pin his semifinal opponent, Dryden’s Vincent Scott, leading to a final where he dominated J-D/CBA’s Shoh Alibekov in an 11-0 shutout.
Brady Ryan nearly won at 138 pounds, reaching the finals and getting to overtime with Whitesboro’s Jeff Robinson before a takedown in OT helped Robinson prevail 5-3.
Chandler McAvan got to the 285-pound final before Canastota’s Mike Leibl pinned him, and it was the same at 220 pounds, Cole Wade reaching the title bout, but East Syracuse Minoa’s Ameer Ladd prevailing with a second-period fall.
At 132 pounds, Ejarian Burgin was third when East Syracuse Minoa’s Alex Leo had to forfeit the consolation bracket final. Colin McAvan finished fifth at 145 pounds, with Mike Sarakos fifth at 170 pounds.
Jordan-Elbridge took part in Port Byron’s Mid-Winter Classic, where it finished 10th out of 20 teams with 89 points as Cicero-North Syracuse, with 169 points, edged South Jefferson/Sandy Creek (161 points) for the top spot.
Derek Quigley led the Eagles, reaching the finals at 145. Quigley pinned Alex Ansteth (Auburn) in 84 seconds and pinned Andrew Mateo (Geneva) in 4:34 to reach the championship round, where he lost to Port Byron’s Tyler Parker in a 20-5 technical fall.
Landry LaFleur got third place at 182 pounds, pinning North Rose-Wolcott’s Kyle Kasper in the consolation bracket final. Anthony Baron finished fourth at 195 pounds.
Before all this, West Genesee and Marcellus were part of the massive field in the Dec. 28-29 Kenneth Haines Memorial Tournament at SUNY-Oswego, where the Mustangs had 63 points to finish 18th and the Wildcats, with 28 points, were further behind.
Carl Santiarello led Marcellus by getting all the way to the championship round at 106 pounds. Santiarello edged Mark Kuhn (Niagara-Wheatfield) 6-5 in the quarterfinals and beat Gabe Rupracht (Central Square) 10-6 in the semifinals, but then ran into Horace Greeley’s Matt Schreiber in the finals and lost a 28-13 technical fall.
Tom Kinsella earned fifth place at 195 when, with a single escape, he got a 1-0 decision over Cicero-North Syracuse’s Adam Rush. Riley LaFrance finished sixth at 152 pounds after a narrow 7-5 overtime loss to Greeley’s Everett Bueti in the semifinals.
As for WG, Wade, at 120, dropped a 7-4 semifinal to Fulton’s Tom Hughes, but rebounded to beat Kaleb Hogan (West Springfield, Massachusetts) 7-1 to finish fifth. Ryan took sixth place at 145.
J-E had its first meet of 2019 last Thursday night, against Cato-Meridian, and started with four consecutive pins on the way to an easy 68-12 victory over the Blue Devils.
In the opener at 195, Baron took 2:19 to pin Antonio Jackson, with Jared Lawrence (220) pinning Josh Hulsizer in 2:44. It required 2:07 for Josh Roberts (285) to finish off Santana Salvador as Bryan Tanner (99 pounds) got his pin over Chase Towers in just 18 seconds.
Marion Quigley had the only other pin at 145, needing 80 seconds to earn his fall over Chad Thompson. Christian Matthews (120) beat Jordan Greene 9-2 as LaFleur, Cole Mullen (152), Luke Pinckney (160), Nolan Jackson (113 pounds) and Cameron Prior (126 pounds) claimed forfeits.
