Wrestling
Section IV Class B Tournament
(At Afton)
B-G/Afton and Norwich will send over 20 combined wrestlers to the Section IV Division Two meet next weekend, and the two teams combined for seven championships and 11 overall finalists Saturday at Afton.
The Bears were easy winners in team scoring polling 221.5 points, while the Purple Tornado took home a fourth-place finish racking up 153 total points.
Tristan Rifanburg blew out defending champion Jesse Holton of Windsor, 14-0, in the 112-pound finals, and will enter the upcoming sectional tournament as the top seed in his weight class.
Frank Garcia (119) beat Waverly’s Curtis Grant for the third time this season, and is the number two seed at sectionals; and Kegan Levesque (215) outpointed Windsor’s Jesse Angevine, 1-0, his third victory over Angevine this season. Levesque is the number two seed at sectionals.
“Our guys are wrestling well, and they’re all in end-season form,” said Norwich coach Joe Downey, who said 10 NHS wrestlers earned sectional tournament bids, and perhaps an 11th will receive a wild-card bid. “We’re ready to go for next week, and we hope to have a couple of guys go to states.”
The Bears had seven wrestlers reach the finals, four of those earning titles. Danny Gormley will bid for a fifth Section IV title after claiming the 125-pound crown. The Bears then strung four straight first-place finishes together taking 152 to 189 pounds. Daren Terpstra (152), Paul Parsons (160), Vinnie Buttice (171), and Mark Viviano (189) won championships for the Bears, who should be among the top contenders for the Section IV Division II team title at the Broome County Arena this coming Friday and Saturday.
Section III Class C
(At Lowville)
Sherburne-Earlville senior Greg DuVall pinned Cassey Seton of Ilion at 152 pounds to give the Marauders their lone championship victory at the Section IV Class C meet Tuesday.
DuVall, who has not lost to Section III wrestler this season, pinned Seton in 1:28. The Marauders were fourth in team scoring, and were bolstered by runner-up finishes from Kevin Dunshee (96), Dustin Moseley (103), and Spencer Franklin (125). Overall, S-E had seven guys seeded in the top four, and eight earned spots to the Section III small school meet next weekend at the Utica Auditorium.
“We were hoping to get the seven seeded guys into sectionals, and then maybe get another one or two in,” said S-E assistant coach Brian Hicks. “We were able to do that. It was a solid showing for us, and we finished behind some solid programs.”
Section IV, Class C meet
(At Tioga)
Greene placed second behind host Tioga at the Class C meet Saturday, and won four championships to highlight its performances.
Defending sectional champion Mike Beckwith (145) won by technical fall over Leland Slawson over Unatego; Keegan Cerwinski stuck Nick Matthews of Whitney Point in 1:34; Kurt Shear (189) earned a hard-fought 3-2 overtime win over Lansing’s Ryan Todd, and Kyle Stanton (215) made short work of Groton’s Joe Morton pinning him in 29 seconds.
For Shear, it was his second win over Todd this season, who beat Shear in last year’s Section IV finals, and went on to place second in the state. Stanton was a Section IV runner-up a year ago, but enters the upcoming sectional meet as the top seed in division two.
Class D Tournament
(at Deposit)
At Deposit Saturday, Oxford won three championships and Unadilla Valley captured two, and each club will take a large portion of their team to the Section IV Division II meet this Friday and Saturday.
The Blackhawks followed up their best dual meet season in several years putting six into the finals. Austin Crandall (103), and Jeremiah Winter (112), and senior Devin Depew (135) won titles. Crandall backed up a win over Tozhia Possemato the previous week at the MAC Championships with a 7-0 shutout. Winter pinned his opponent in the second period, and Depew edged Freedom Boda of Candor, 3-2. Oxford placed third overall in the team scoring behind Walton and Deposit-Hancock. “We wrestled pretty well, and to get six into the finals is about what we thought we could do,” said Oxford coach Craig Tefft. “Crandall keeps getting better and better for us, and I think Winter is one of the top guys in the section in his weight class. Our goal for Devin next is to get him as high on the podium as possible.”
Also reaching the finals for Oxford were Joe Nelson (96), Jody Smith (140), and Clayton Audette (152).
Unadilla Valley had back-to-back championships from Tyler Olsen (119) and Dustin Badger (125). Each Storm grappler won their finals matches by pin.
