CENTRAL NEW YORK – On the second Saturday of January, the Cazenovia wrestling team would welcome several top teams to Buckley Gym for the Lakers’ annual invitational meet before a regular-season finale Tuesday against Marcellus.
Out of 14 teams in the field, the Lakers, earning 99 points, took fifth place. Fayetteville-Manlius climbed to the top spot with 137.5 points as Chittenango was eighth with 40 points.
Cazenovia and Chittenango went head-to-head for the title at 152 pounds, where Broden Enders defeated Edward Geer 10-3 on his way to earning the Dale Petroff Award for Most Outstanding Wrestler of the meet. This followed, by one week, Enders winning in that same weight class at the Port Byron Invitational, where he edged APW/Pulaski’s Ethan Purdy 2-0 in the title bout.
Bryce Enders finished second at 160 pounds, dropping a tight 5-4 final to Canastota’s Luken Gaiser. Gabriel Sanchez reached the 145-pound final where he lost a tight 8-5 decision to Whitesboro’s Joe Dare.
Also for Chittenango, Peter Schulz gave the Bears a third-place effort at 215 pounds, edging Uriah Diggle (Oxford-Greene) 7-4 for that spot. Eli McDonald was fifth at 285 pounds.
A week earlier, in the Port Byron Invitational, Cazenovia did not have any of its wrestlers finish in the top five, with Sanchez able to get sixth place at 145.
Chittenango competed the previous weekend in the Hornet Duals at Fayetteville-Manlius, where it went 2-3, starting with three consecutive defeats.
The Bears fell 48-21 to Fulton, 49-15 to host F-M and then 54-21 to Petrides, a visiting school from Staten Island, but then began to turn it around by defeating Dryden 44-30 before a 42-30 win over Syracuse City.
Against Dryden, Chittenango claimed every point from 152 to 285 pounds, and while there were forfeits, there was also Geer, at 160, earning at 16-0 technical fall over Nick Bieber and Schulz pinning Lucas VanSlyke in 58 seconds. Noah Haarman, at 101 pounds, got an overtime takedown to beat Aeden Lange 7-5.
The match with Syracuse opened at 138 pounds with Ian Bentz pinning Amrou Ashkar in just 17 seconds, with Dylan Brownson wrestling at 152 pounds and earning a fall over Anthony Riley in the second period.
Schulz moved down to 190 pounds, where he pinned Jeff Petties late in the second period, and at 285 pounds Elijah McDonald took 65 seconds to finish off Teddy Toe.
Reality hit again last Thursday when Chittenango lost, 68-6, to Phoenix, with the only points earned when Trevor McDonald, at 116 pounds, pinned Jordan Gullen midway through the third period. Close at 170 pounds, Norman Coomer fell 3-1 to Leon Smith.
