When the Cicero-North Syracuse wrestling team hosts Liverpool Thursday night, it’s quite likely that the regular-season championship in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division is on the line.
The Northstars are 3-0 in league competition, with the Warriors 2-1, in the wake of last Wednesday’s matches, where C-NS dominated late to defeat Baldwinsville 56-25 and Liverpool rolled past Syracuse City 69-18.
C-NS was gearing up to take part in Saturday’s Division I portion of the Section III Dual Meet, which it was not hosting, but instead traveling to Indian River, where as the no. 2 seed it would face no. 3 seed Carthage in the semifinals.
Against B’ville, the Northstars started out with forfeits to Alex Nobles (160 pounds) and Chris Melek (170 pounds), but the Bees took four of the next five bouts, the lone exception Troyan Jones, at 220 pounds, getting a 16-1 technical fall over Will DuBois.
Starting at 106 pounds, though, the Northstars, down 22-17, took charge as Dan Sweeney’s second-period pin over Mason Clark gave C-NS the lead for good. At 113 pounds, Harrison Portorsnok went to overtime before a takedown beat Max Naples 4-2.
Brian Besanson won at 120 pounds, pinning Brendan Hoff in 3:35 as Vince Ciciarelli (132 pounds) got a third-period fall over Liam Fitzgerald. Forfeits went to Nate Osborne at 126 pounds and Adam Brown at 138 pounds.
Despite Devin Southworth (145 pounds) taking a 7-4 loss to Nate Hahn, Anthony Desimone closed out the match at 152 pounds with an 86-second pin over Connor Kral.
Meanwhile, Liverpool was hosting Syracuse, inviting its youth wrestlers, along with their parents, out to watch the Warriors take advantage of three chances it had to compete on the mat.
Lochlan Fegley, at 285 pounds, pinned Josiah Carnegie, with Jeremy Ianno getting a pin over Sidali Mohammed at 113 and Jonah Gellar, at 126, pinning Malik Egerton. Matt Spoto (99) won a 12-5 decision over Emilio Ocasio.
Since Syracuse did not have a full roster, Liverpool benefited from eight forfeits amounting to 48 points. Rocco DeGiormo (106), Jacob Ianno (120), Steve Pascarella (132), Jeremiah Poulsen (138), Dom Ianno (145), Chris Ianno (152), Anthony Piscatelli (170) and Ron Cyr (182 pounds) took those forfeits.
C-NS wrestled again Thursday, at Auburn, and prevailed 60-24, with forfeits in five different weight classes, but plenty of success on the mat, too.
In fact, none of the bouts in the higher weight classes lasted a minute. Adam Rush, at 220, took 15 seconds to pin Jaden Dawley as Jones moved up to 285 to pin Aiden Tardif in 21 seconds and Julian Zavaglia (195 pounds) finished off Tom Pilbeam in 44 seconds.
C-NS got two other pins as Desimone, in 86 seconds, earned a fall over Ryan Bochenek and Southworth waited until the third period to get his pin of Alex Antsteth. Dan Livesay (99) lost a 9-8 decision to Christian Hogan.
