CICERO – All through this winter, the Cicero-North Syracuse wrestling team has broke through barriers previous Northstars programs could not.
And it continued Saturday when the Northstars, on its home mats, held off defending champion Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA to earn the Section III Class AA championship.
When all the bouts were done, C-NS had 195.5 points, just clear of the Rams’ total of 188. Liverpool made a strong push for the top spot, too, before settling for third place with 167 points.
Two Northstars won their respective weight classes. Kamdin Bembry, continuing a strong campaign at 215 pounds, pinned Liverpool’s Joe Piscitell in the semifinals and, in the title bout, got a pin over Fayetteville-Manlius opponent Jackson Schwab with 19 seconds left.
Up at 160 pounds, Ayden Sprague, improving to 24-4 on the season, only had to win twice, with a second-period fall over Jacob Severson (West Genesee) in the semifinals and a tough 3-1 decision over Liverpool’s Dante Mallozzi in the final.
Another Liverpool-C-NS battle unfolded in the 172-pound title bout, but the Warriors claimed it when Owen Atchie claimed a back-and-forth battle with John Sherbourne, prevailing 7-6.
Just as close to winning at 118 pounds, the Northstars’ Anthony Ciciarelli scored plenty of points against Auburn’s Mike Boyhan, only to take an 8-7 defeat. Kennedy Thomas was second at 132 pounds, dropping his final 16-8 to J-D/CBA’s Nathan Finn.
Atchie was Liverpool’s lone winner, as Mallozzi, Connor Kral (152 pounds) and Paolo Munetz (102 pounds) each got second-place finishes. Kral fell 5-0 to J-D/CBA’s Gerald Vielhauer as Munetz took a pin from Auburn’s Brady Maneri.
C-NS had Javone Dawkins earn third place at 110 pounds when he pinned teammate Kevin Mossow in 3:28, while at 285 pounds Joe Kozubowski beat F-M’s Andrew Dabulewicz 6-2 in the consolation bracket final. Sean Aldrich finished fourth at 138 pounds.
Kasey Kalfass beat Cael Bruce (Auburn) for fifth place at 102, with Drew Baker (126 pounds) pinning Auburn’s Owen Johnson to also finish fifth as Austin Hartman (189 pounds) earned fifth when he pinned teammate Khol Kalfass. Jacob Day was sixth at 152.
Liverpool had Lucas Smith blank Dylan Radcliffe (West Genesee) 4-0 for third place at 132, with Tony Kelly earning third place at 160 when he pinned Severson after Sprague did so.
Carson Rice was fourth at 118, while Marek Sokolowski was fourth at 126 and Jayce Bliss fourth at 189 to match Piscitelli. Tyler Sharkey got fifth place at 145 pounds and Keegan Meyer fifth at 285 as Aiden Adams-Bovenzi got sixth place at 110.
Most of these wrestlers will make their way to SRC Arena this Saturday for the sectional Division I championships, where only winners are guaranteed spots in the Feb. 24-25 state meet in Albany.
