Before they went to the holiday break and another round of tournament action area high school wrestling teams would engage in more large-scale events.
It started on Dec. 20 when the Fayetteville-Manlius and Jamesville-DeWitt/Christian Brothers Academy girls sides both took part in the Cicero-North Syracuse Tournament.
For the Hornets, who finished eighth out of 13 teams in the field, Lacey Teaken had the best showing. At 126 pounds, Teaken blanked Peyton Toutant (Indian River) 10-0 to reach the finals, only to fall to West Genesee’s Riley Butler 8-2 in the finals.
Doing even better was J-D/CBA’s Abigail Benzinger, the champion at 138 pounds. Benzinger’s 68-second semifinal pin of Camden’s Payton Hansen was followed by a title bout where she pinned Northern Adirondack’s Clara Parsons in 2:52.
Joye Lai gave the Rams a third-place finish at 96 pounds, pinning Gouverneur’s Peyton Dean in 51 seconds in the consolation bracket final as F-M teammates met in that same round at 152 pounds and Madeline Leyhane won 11-0 over Sydney Graham.
Persephone Spates added a fourth-place finish at 165 pounds for the Hornets, while Lucy Gallery made her way to fifth place at 145 pounds and Norah Kelly was sixth at 235 pounds.
On the boys side, F-M wrestled head-to-head with Adirondack on Dec. 21 and lost, 46-28, to the Wildcats in Boonville.
Eric Kozlowski handled Jonah Sturtevant 18-3 at 138 pounds to get the Hornets on the board. Tyler Delaney (160 pounds) pinned Landon Hamburg in the second period, with Harrison Schwab (190 pounds) getting his own fall over Jesse Dragan and Joe Rafuse closing it out at 124 pounds getting a 17-2 technical fall over Seth Strain.
J-D/CBA wrestled in the Cuneen-Doane Tournament at Walton and threatened for the team title, finishing third with 171 points not far from the winning 181 by Homer and 176.5 from Windsor.
Max Griffin went to the top for the Rams at 131 pounds, surviving a tough 5-3 final with Deposit-Hancock’s Jason Canedo, while Bryce Dadey moved to 9-0 this season winning at 215 pounds when he pinned Homer’s Owen Burhans in just 38 seconds.
Three other J-D/CBA wrestlers had third-place finishes – Dominic Schiano at 124, Chris Grosso at 160 and Mykola Fabian at 285 pounds. Zeikal Soltau was fourth at 101 ahead of Biruk Royal, whose fifth-place effort was matched by four teammates – Zion Garelick (138), Kai Vien (145 pounds), Braeden Hennessey (170 pounds) and Adam Butler (190).
East Syracuse Minoa went 1-4 in the Cato-Meridian Duals earning a 30-23 win over Auburn when Colin Caiello (190), Jayden Clark (215), Peyton Spencer (131) and Brendon Zwiesler (170) each earned first-period pins and another pin went to Aiden Pahon at 152 pounds.
Otherwise the Spartans lost 53-16 to Jordan-Elbridge, 41-24 to Herkimer, 42-29 to Oswego and 66-12 to Sherburne-Earlville, though Spencer went a perfect 5-0, four of them pins, and Pahon had a 3-2 record as Zwiesler went 2-2.
