ALBANY – A superb season for two area high school wrestlers would conclude with their respective appearances in this weekend’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships in Albany.
Prior to this, Cazenovia senior Gabriel Sanchez and Chittenango senior Eddie Geer had never experienced anything close than what they did last Friday morning walking into MVP Arena in front of thousands of fans.
Each of them had difficult opening-round assignments, with Sanchez as a no. 16 seed at 152 pounds and Geer starting out as the no. 15 seed at 160 pounds.
Against Shoreham-Wading River’s Jacob Conti, Sanchez was able to net points, but not enough of them to advance to face top seed Luke Nieto (Plainedge) as Conti prevailed in 7-3 decision.
Not long after, Geer got his turn against Connor Wilson (Poughkeepsie Lourdes), and could not make it out of the first period as Wilson pinned him before a defeat in the next round to the no. 2 seed, Colton Havens (Canisteo-Greenwood).
Both Geer and Sanchez were now in the consolation brackets, and Geer would prevail 13-5 over Peter Thompson (Dansville) before, in the next round, putting up lots of points against Matt Cuccinello (Mount Sinai) but still taking a 14-10 loss.
As for Sanchez, he faced Highland’s Quinian Jones, who outscored him 13-5 to finish a season where Sanchez wrestled 50 times and won 35 of those bouts. Geer went 30-7 overall.
