CENTRAL NEW YORK – By mat results alone, the Cazenovia wrestling team outperformed Canastota in last Wednesday night’s 2024-25 season opener at Buckley Gym.
Of the 11 contested bouts, the Lakers won six of them, but not having a competitor at 101 or 108 pounds led to a pair of forfeits and those 12 points were a difference-maker in a 42-35 defeat.
They opened at 131 pounds and Cazenovia got on the board at 138 thanks to Cullen Arnold, who pinned Wyatt Duffy early in the second period right before Nate Chapman, at 145 pounds, got a 59-second fall over Evan Bixby.
Two more pins followed in the higher weight classes. Paolo Markey needed just 85 seconds in his 160-pound bout to pin Levi Case, while at 215 pounds Riley Fowler waited until the third period to pin Robert
Raynore.
Amid all this, Canastota earned five pins of its own for 30 points and clinched it with the forfeits before Gryphon Foster, at 116 pounds, got a 16-1 technical fall over Will Soucia and Carter Sgouris (125 pounds) followed pinning Kyan Santana in the second period.
Cazenovia and Chittenango again will spend winter weekends venturing out to various tournaments to gauge themselves against all kinds of competition.
Such was the case when the Lakers went to the Morrisville-Eaton Duals last Saturday, where it would post a 3-2 record earning victories over East Syracuse Minoa 52-12, Rome Free Academy 39-24 and the hosts from M-E 36-21.
The ESM match involved first-period pins by Nate Chapman (145 pounds), Brock Duerr (190 pounds) and Luther Dannon (285 pounds), with Chapman pinning Jordan Straile in 52 seconds. Fowler also earned a pin.
Most of the bouts against RFA were forfeits, but Foster did wrestle at 116 and pinned Kahlief Smith in the second period as Gabriel Sanchez (160 pounds) beat Chad Tennant 9-5. Against M-E, Fowler got another pin and Sgouris won outlasting Jacob Jones 10-5.
Sanchez got the only points in a 61-3 loss to Salem-Cambridge when he beat Jacob Wardwell 5-2, while in a 48-15 defeat to Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA Sanchez and Foster picked up pins and Chapman won a wild 17-12 battle with Matt Fallon.
As this went on, Chittenango was at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bill Andersen Memorial Tournament, where it finished seventh in a 12-team field earning 77 points.
Edward Geer had the best finish for the Bears, pinning Windsor’s Mason Colgan in 38 seconds for third place at 160. Tyler Addison got fifth place at 101 pounds pinning Little Falls’ Trint Kinney in 82 seconds, with Noah Haarman (108 pounds), Dan Mahle (131) and Miles Wilson (145) each taking sixth place.
