Even though it would not get close to the top of the standings, the Baldwinsville wrestling team still had plenty of strong individual efforts in Saturday’s Section III Class AA championships at Auburn High School.
All told, the Bees had 133.5 points, barely half the total of Liverpool, who won with 252 points as Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA (181 points) held off Cicero-North Syracuse (171.5 points) for the runner-up spot.
Aiden Cali emerged with B’ville’s lone victory at 106 pounds. Cali pinned C-NS’s Kevin Mossow in 1:46 to get to the title bout and then needed just 3:45 to pin J-D/CBA’s Jackson Thomas for the title.
Up at 99 pounds, Jared McMonagle and Keegan Hayes made it the consolation bracket final, but it was McMonagle pinning Hayes in 1:50 to finish third as Hayes settled for fourth place.
Much the same thing happened at 182 pounds, Mike Kral and Fred Pickard both losing semifinals, but then reaching the third-place bout where Kral took 2:20 to pin Pickard.
Max Naples got third place at 120 pounds by topping West Genesee’s Dylan Pitonza 4-1. Korban Haney earned third place at 285 pounds when he pinned J-D/CBA’s Nikoli Sims in 3:28.
At 160 pounds, Connor Kral claimed fifth place when he blanked C-NS’s Zach Overton 4-0. Jacob Mitts also was fifth at 220 pounds, rebounding from a quarterfinal defeat enough to pin Syracuse’s Sean Hunt in 4:18 for that designation.
Mason Clarke was sixth at 113 pounds, going 2-3 overall after he dropped a 9-0 semifinal to the eventual champion, Rome Free Academy’s Ashton Thompson.
Ryan Hemund finished fourth at 152 pounds, having lost his semifinal to Liverpool’s Chris Ianno. Brandon Levine (132 pounds) lost in the quarterfinals, as did Jayden Prince at 138 pounds.
All of these B’ville wrestlers could be part of the field this Saturday at SRC Arena for the sectional Divisin I (large school) championships, with berths in the Feb. 28-29 state meet in Albany guaranteed only to the winners in the 15 various weight classes.
