MOUNT MARKHAM – The Sherburne-Earlville wrestling squad traveled to Mount Markham high school Jan. 23, on a mission to take home the title, and they did just that as they went 5-0 at the duel meet tournament.
The Mustang Duels in 2016, was coordinated to be a 6-team round robin type tournament.
“We had some really good duel meets, some of kids haven’t had a lot of experience so a lot of them got their first and second wins for the team,” said Sherburne coach Brian Hicks.
The tournament consisted of six teams: Sherburne-Earlville, Poland, Mount Markham, APW/Pulaski, Otselic Valley and Unadilla Valley.
Hicks noted that due to having the most complete lineups, Sherburne was matched up against Poland to finish the day of wrestling out. When S-E matched up against Poland both S-E and Poland were undefeated on the day, both at 4-0. The Marauders would come away victorious winning, 54-21.
“That last match, we wrestled Poland in the finals. We started 126-pounds, our kids had been wrestling great around those weights,” said Hicks. “I had told them, this duel meet, for us to win this one, it is going to start with you guys. You guys get on as roll and we’ll win this. Every one of those kids pinned all the way up until 160-pounds. We started 36-0.”
126-Michael Trask; 132-Dawson Meade; 138- Hunter Zybydniewski; 145- Vincent Albertina; 152- Hunter Owen; and 160- Gerald Hicks; all pinned their opponents from Poland to start the matchup out, with the upper weights 220- Walter Keihn; and 285- Cole Mikalunas also earning pins to help S-E secure the matchup and move 5-0, earning them a first place standing at the Mustang Duels.
“It was really exciting, they were just out of their heads, and they were just wrestling great, we had a ball,” said Hicks. “The crowd was crazy, we had a bunch of people from Sherburne there, and they were just losing their minds.”
Round one of the tournament saw S-E roll over a depleted roster in the Otselic Valley Team, 63-24. S-E would see four of the six matchups go in their favor by way of pins.
Round two of the day proved to be the closest matchup of the night for the Marauders on the scoreboard, as they edged the host team, Mount Markham 48-31. The scoreboard told a different story than the books however, S-E would only win two out of the six actual matchups, but a full lineup would save them, as forfeits played a huge role in this matchup, S-E received five forfeits resulting in a 30-point swing for the Marauders.
