CHENANGO BRIDGE – Norwich has already had much success in the 2017-2018 season and it’s just the beginning.

After having six wrestle in the finals at Clyde Cole, crowning four champions, the Purple Tornado traveled to a two-day duel meet in Central Valley.

Finishing 6-2 in a total at eight matches, Norwich proved once again they are going to be a force in the Section IV Wrestling world. With wins over La Salle Institute, Lowville, Onteora, Holland Patent twice and Mount Markham.

Their two losses to Spencer Van-Etten/Candor and the host Central Valley. Both programs are two of the premier in New York State. The Tornado’s loss to SVEC was by seven points. In that match, Bryant Sexton and Eli Rodriguez squared off again, just one week after their exciting match at Clyde Cole. Sexton and Rodriguez went the distance again, with Sexton coming out on top in a 7-4 decision. The next time these two could possibly meet again is in the Section IV tournament.

To keep them in the match, Norwich received wins from Andrew Brown, Dante Geislinger, Nick Glanville, Brennan Slater, Keegan Wright, Tyler Rice and Izaiah Caballero.

Against Central Valley, a Section III powerhouse in the wrestling world, the Purple Tornado saw defeat by only 11 points. In the duel match, Norwich’s victories came from Brown, Rice, Slater, Angel Francis, Dakota Powers and Eli Rodriguez.

“We wrestled really well,” said Norwich Head coach Bob Hagenbuch. “The guys fought hard all weekend against some pretty good competition. I’m very proud of these young men.

 “We had some things go our way and some that didn’t. That’s going to happen with 8 duals in two days. We went in with two of our better guys already out. On Saturday, we ended up not having Keegan Wright at all due to an injury on Friday night and Eli Rodriguez was on a limited basis aggravating an injury from the Clyde Cole.”

Slater had a good showing this weekend, winning seven out of eight matches. His loss came from Onteora’s Dillion Ross, giving Slater his only loss this season thus far.

But it was Norwich’s youth that really shined throughout the weekend.

Brown’s weekend was successful as he finished with a win in all matches with four pins, a tech fall and had zero points scored against him.

Rice also went undefeated over the weekend with seven of his matches ending with a pin and one tech fall.

Caballero earned the Most Outstanding Wrestler award from his weekend performance. Only losing one match, Hagenbuch stated he did, “an outstanding job winning key matches where he might have been overmatched but zoned in and took care of business.”