CENTRAL NEW YORK – Top wrestlers from Cazenovia and Chittenango did more than seek individual titles out of the last Saturday’s Section III championship meets.
With good finishes here, the Lakers and Bears would both have wrestlers advance to this weekend’s sectional Division II (small schools) state qualifier at SRC Arena.
Cazenovia took part in the Class C sectional meet at General Brown, where Cullen Arnold recorded the best finish at 131 pounds, pinning Dylan Bailey (Holland Patent) in the quarterfinals and blanking Mason Morris (Phoenix) in a 15-0 technical fall in the semifinals.
Arnold lost his final in a high-scoring battle with Phoenix’s Quentin Thomas, who took it 24-14, yet still easily made it to the state qualifier joined by a trio of Cazenovia fourth-place finishers.
Gryphon Foster, at 108 pounds, only missed out on third by a single move in a 1-0 defeat to Sherburne-Earlville’s Jackson Moore and Gabriel Sanchez was close, too, at 152 pounds falling 4-2 to Marcellus’ Anthony DeCapio.
Nate Chapman got fourth place at 145 pounds, with Luther Dannon getting to sixth place at 285 pounds.
Meanwhile, at Homer High school Chittenango was also kept from a first-place finish in any weight class but did see Edward Geer reach the finals at 160 pounds.
Geer earned a 9-3 decision over Mexico’s Manuel Pelton-Velazquez in the semifinals, setting up a title bout with South Jefferson ‘s Michael Roberts, who proved too tough prevailing by a score of 7-1.
While no other Bears wrestler had a top-four finish, three of them earned fifth-place efforts to go with Neri Abt (138 pounds), Kole Smith (145 pounds) and Ian Bentz (152) each taking sixth place.
At 101 pounds, Tyler Addison blanked Torrin O’Brien (South Jefferson) 6-0 to finish fifth, while Elijah McDonald pinned Camden’s Hunter Waterman in 90 seconds to do the same at 285. Far closer was a 131-pound fifth-place bout where Dan Mahle outlasted South Jefferson’s Trey Lawton 11-10.
