With a full regular season of work almost behind them, the Cazenovia wrestling team made its way to Homer last Saturday for the Onondaga High School League Liberty/Patriot tournament.
Earning 138.5 points, the Lakers got fifth place in an eight-team field as Marcellus claimed the top spot with 302.5 points and the host Trojans (240.5 points) was second.
Kevin Valentine prevailed at 170 pounds, topping Phoenix’s Ayden Slack 2-0 in the title bout, but no other Cazenovia wrestler was able to reach the championship round.
Shaun Zampetti finished fourth at 106 pounds, with Brad Gagnon fourth at 138 pounds, Carter Polhamus fourth at 285 pounds and Alex Rodriguez fourth at 152 pounds,
Matt Knutsen beat Adam Barbosa (Marcellus) 7-4 for fifth place at 126 pounds. At 132 pounds, Lucca Ferreira was fifth, beating Jordan Beach (Hannibal) 7-2 for that spot as Blaze Dannon (182 pounds) pinned APW/Pulaski’s Mike Kinney to get his own fifth-place finish.
Adding to this was John Frega earning fifth place at 220 pounds when he beat Phoenix’s Zach Green 10-1 and Jake Tobin pinning Hannibal’s Zach Housel to earn fifth place at 160 pounds. Jedrek Olkowski was sixth at 138 pounds.
Right before the league meet, Cazenovia hosted Liverpool, the regular-season champions in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division, and lost 61-12 to the Warriors.
Dannon opened by beating Gianpaul Cooper 5-2, with Zampetti working past Lucas Smith 9-5 and Valentine closing with a pin over Caleb Hildman.
Other bouts were close, too, as Polhamus lost 2-0 to J.J. Guindy, with Frega taking a 4-1 defeat to Hamier Williams-Borges and Ferreira falling to Jonah Gellar 9-2.
Exactly one week earlier, Chittenango was involved in another tournament, the Red Devil Duals at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, where it went 1-4 overall.
The Bears’ lone victory came against Oneida, a 42-24 decision where Mark Young, at 132 pounds, pinned Milo VanDyke in 28 seconds, with first-period pins also going to Peyton Denney (106 pounds) and John Spencer (285 pounds).
Quentin Mohamed (126 pounds), Joe Mariani (145 pounds), Jacob Ezzo (182 pounds) and Luke Martin (220 pounds) all took forfeits that helped Chittenango pull away from the Indians.
In the other matches, the Bears fell 48-27 to host VVS, with Denney getting a 10-9 win over Aaron Moir and pins by Mariani over Jeremy Kennedy in 30 seconds and Mohamed over Caleb Ingalls in 40 seconds.
Then Chittenango lost 42-28 to Odessa-Montour, though Denney, Mariani and Young had pins. A 66-18 loss to West Genesee had pins from Mariani and Spencer and a 54-21 loss to Canajoharie-Fort Plain included a pin from Spencer and Martin’s 5-2 win over Dustin Moyer.
