Adams turns the table on Stoney Creek, claims district title
Having lost to Rochester Adams, 49-24, less than three weeks ago, Stoney Creek knew it was going to have to flip more than a few matches to get past the Highlanders at Thursday night’s team district tournament.
But less than six minutes into the two teams’ district championship match, Adams put to rest any thought of a Cougar upset. Junior Jose “Kikke” Hernandez, who had been pinned by Stoney’s Edward Barkham in their last meeting on Jan. 18, picked up a 24-8 technical fall this time around. It set the tone for the match, which Adams went on to win in impressive fashion, 56-18, to claim the district championship.
“Kikke came back from that pin and got the tech fall, which was big for us,” said Adams head coach Mike Holtz, whose team fell to Stoney Creek in last year’s district final. “And also, at 106, Chris Spresney was losing his match by six, seven points and gets the pin. That’s kind of what high school sports is all about.”
Spresney’s win came with his team trailing, 15-14. The sophomore trailed Stoney’s Michael Wille, 11-5, midway through the second period but scored eight straight points to take a 13-11 lead after two. He then turned Wille to his back early in the third before picking up the fall at 106 pounds.
The Cougars answered with junior Benito Tinaj’s 10-4 win over Andrew Maynard at 113. It was a matchup between two county placers.
But that was the last match Stoney would win. Adams rolled off six straight wins to cap off the match, all by fall. Jace Morgan pinned Nick Frazzitta in the second period at 120 pounds to extend his team’s lead to 26-18.
Antonio Randazzo pinned Owen Oliver midway through their 126-pound match. Elia Thomas wasted little time pinning Isaac Fandakly at 132 pounds, picking up the fall in 1:30. Dominic Baccari, Kris Dombrowski and Michael Ackerman rounded out the match with pins.
“Even though we did as well as we did last time (against Stoney), a lot of things can happen,” Holtz said. “We wanted to make sure our seniors went out
with a win in their last time on their home mat.”
Among those seniors who left the home mat as winners were Ackerman, Andrew Romanski and Tanner Buck. Romanski defeated Arnav Sharma, 8-2, at 175 pounds and Buck pinned Josh Bischoff in just 57 seconds at 190 pounds.
Stoney Creek won three of the first six matches to jump out to that 1514 lead. Stanley Czbanski beat Mike Dreon, 6-0, at 165 pounds. Adam Bazzi pinned Hasson Yoon in 1:45 at 215 and Roman Lambert also won by fall, over Sergei Movsesyan, at 285.
“For us to have a chance to beat Adams tonight, at some very specific weight classes, we could not afford to get pinned and we actually needed to get a decision or a major decision,” Stoney Creek head coach Jermain Crowell said. “Those losses at the lighter weights, we just couldn’t overcome them. The challenge was just too much for us. At the end of the day, Adams was just a better team than us.”
Adams defeated Rochester, 54-24, in its semifinal match. Ackerman, Hernandez, Buck, Maynard, Morgan, Randazzo, Thomas, Baccari and Dombrowski all picked up wins for the Highlanders.
Stoney Creek knocked off Utica Eisenhower, 4238, in the other semifinal.
Adams advances to the regional round, where it will face Troy in a semifinal match. The winner will take on the winner of the Macomb Dakota-Romeo matchup.
“The goal was to win districts as a team and to show up next week and compete,” Holtz said. “That’s what we did tonight and that’s what we’ll do next week. We’re measuring our effort. If we go out there and end up getting beat by someone who is just better than us, and the effort was there, we’ll be pleased with that.”