BALDWINSVILLE – Before it hit the post-season trail, the Baldwinsville wrestling team had one more important event to attend to – at which it would emerge triumphant.
The Bees won its own Jan. 28 dual meet at Baker High School, sweeping four different opponents, the decisive one a 57-18 romp over East Syracuse Minoa, who had won its other three matches that day.
Starting with Levi Schanzenbach’s 29-second pin of Caiden Scott at 118 pounds, B’ville won each of the first nine bouts, just two of them forfeits.
Michael Spinner (132 pounds), Olu Gbengbe (145 pounds), Michael Fults (152 pounds), Davian McLeod (160 pounds), Aaron Fredenburg (172 pounds) and Judson Ferris (189 pounds) all earned pins, with Ferris taking just 12 seconds to pin Colin Caiello and Fults 46 seconds to finish off Aden Dewald.
To close out the match, Brennan Kline, pushed to six minutes at 102 pounds by Austin Nunnally, claimed a 9-6 decision.
It began with the Bees handling Watertown 48-22, Ferris pinning Trent Smith in 24 seconds and Spinner pinning Patrick Clarke in 59 seconds as Keagan Hayes (138 pounds) and Owen Johnson (126 pounds) also had first-period falls.
During a 51-9 win over Dryden, B’ville had Spinner, Hayes, Gbengbe and Fredenburg all get falls before Ferris pinned Aaron Thompson in 25 seconds. Cael Bruce, at 110 pounds, claimed a wild 16-10 battle with Wyatt Curtis.
And the Bees closed with a 48-28 win over Syracuse City where it won just three times on the mat. Johnson pinned Julian Brown in 100 seconds as Gbengbe pinned Ahmari Holmes late in the first period and Fredenburg took 75 seconds to get his pin over Cosmo Kessler.
A week later, it was B’ville taking part in the Section III Class AA championships and finishing fourth with 120 points behind host Cicero-North Syracuse (195.5), Jamesville-DeWItt/CBA (188) and Liverpool (167).
Individually, Hayes was the Bees’ lone finalist, at 138. Hayes had three second-period pins, including a semifinal win over Fayetteville-Manlius’ Harrison Schwab, to reach the final where he lost to Rome Free Academy’s Chad Tennant in a third-period fall.
At 172, Fredenburg again pinned Kessler, this time in 39 seconds, to finish third. Schazenbach blanked Carson Rice (Liverpool) 8-0 for third place at 118.
Ferris earned third place at 189 when he pinned Liverpool’s Jayce Bliss. Collin Zeman (126) pinning Rice’s teammate, Marek Sokolowski, to also get third place.
Kline was fourth and Cael Bruce sixth at 102, with Gbengbe fourth at 145. McLeod, moving to 152, edged C-NS’s Jacob Day 1-0 to finish fifth.
