CENTRAL NEW YORK – All is going well in the early portion of the season for the Fayetteville-Manlius wrestling team, especially when it comes to facing long-time SCAC Metro division rivals who once dominated them.
Hosting Liverpool last Wednesday night, the Hornets led from start to finish and never let the Legends get too close, eventually prevailing by a score of 40-23.
They opened at 131 pounds, where Athan Dauszka got a pin over Jude Atchie just past the midway point of the second period.
Two more bouts followed that went the full six minutes. Graham Dauszka, at 138 pounds, outscored Andrew Lodge 14-8, while Eric Kozlowski was impressive at 145 pounds beating Lantz Herrera 16-5.
Though Liverpool won three of the next four bouts Harrison Schwab interrupted that string at 170 pounds pinning Jon Underwood in just 80 seconds.
More wins came in the heavyweight divisions, Sam Herber (215 pounds) pinning Mohammad Idrees in the second period and Caleb Haase claiming a tense 285-pound bout over David Blue Moore 3-1.
To cap off the night, Elliott Olech, at 108 pounds, needed just 22 seconds to pin Landon Bunyea, while Joe Rafuse earned his pin over 124-pound opponent Sajad Amirzada with less than 20 seconds left.
In a Friday-night meet against Fairport the Hornets lost 44-24, swept in all five of the lighter weight classes, three of them forfeits.
Still, F-M got four pins from Kozlowski, Schwab, Herber and Tyler Delaney (170 pounds), while Olech lost 11-10 to Jacob Gardiner. Haase and Dauszka also had close defeats.
F-M’s girls wrestling team would appear Friday in the Bill Andersen Memorial Tournament at Cicero-North Syracuse where it finished eighth in a 17-team field with 77 points.
Lacey Teaken earned many of those points, taking the 126-pound title. Teaken pinned Rebecca Green (Baldwinsville) in just 26 seconds in the semifinals and then got another pin over Fulton’s Gionna Allen near the end of the first period of their championship bout.
Peyton McCarthy added a fourth-place finish at 235 pounds, with Lucy Gallery (145 pounds) pinning Auburn’s Mackenzie Reed for fifth place and Madeline Leyhane fifth at 152 pounds when she pinned B’ville’s Alexandra Coher.
When it was the F-M boys’ turn in the C-NS Andersen meet, it finished sixth in the 12-team field earning 96.5 points, with Haase taking fourth place at 215 pounds. Four other Hornets had fifth-place finishes.
Delaney earned fifth place on the mat at 160 pounds beating teammate Jacob Pavlov 14-8, but forfeits helped Schwab (170), Dauszka (145) and Rafuse (124) to those same finishes.
East Syracuse Minoa did not get on the board last Wednesday in a 74-0 defeat to Central Square, the closest bout at 170 where Charles English fell to Jack Taskey 8-4. However, the Spartans did get junior varsity wins from Wyatt Kremin (152 pounds), Eoghan Jordan (170) and David Busher-Phipps (190 pounds), all through pins.
