TOGA WRESTLING SAVES THE DAY FOR LOCALS
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » The cold weather cyclone bomb impacted even indoor sports this weekend and despite the holidays being over, Saratoga Springs wrestling handed two Capital Region wrestling programs a late gift, including a team title.
“Friday morning I had four or five teams trying to get into our tournament because of all the cancellations around the area,” Saratoga Springs wrestling Coach Kris West said. “Warrensburg was a last-minute edition, Shen was a last minute edition and we had 145-pounder from Holland Patent come as a late edition.
“We had 16 or 17 teams add those teams and we’re up to 19. This is the biggest we ever had and in some weight classes were 16 deep in a lot of them. I was very happy with the competition this year.”
When the wrestling was completed, all within a welcomed 8 p.m. time slot on Saturday, it was Shenendehowa who captured the team title with 155.5 points, edging out Columbia at 152.5, Niskayuna at 151, Warrensburg at 149 and host Saratoga at 131.
“We were scheduled to go to Peru, Coach (Chris) Capezzuti and I went up the day before to the seeding meeting, then the next
day they cancelled it because of the cold warning, which is probably the right thing to do,” Shenendehowa Coach Rob Weeks said. “We got home and called up Mark Trapasso from Warrensburg and asked if we could get into his dual meet tournament and he said that tournament was cancelled. He said ‘I’m going to Saratoga.’
“When I got off the phone with him I called Kris West and he said ‘You can come in, but some of the brackets may be full and if they are, your kids can’t wrestle.’ That’s better than no option, so we said we would take that and see what we can do.”
Shenendehowa, Columbia, Saratoga and HadleyLuzerne/Lake George each placed three wrestlers in the championship finals with Niskayuna leading the way with five and Ballston Spa following with four finalists.
The tournament party crashers, Shenendehowa and Warrensburg each finished with 35 team wins on the day, but despite the late entry, was welcome by members of the guest list, including West and Columbia Coach Anthony Servidone.
“You don’t get an event like this, this early in January, it’s good for all the teams involved,” Anthony Servidone said. “I’m really pleased with it for our guys. It humbled some guys and kind of got an early January test as to where you’re at and where you want to be in February.
“We don’t get a chance to see Ballston, Shen and Nisky until the crossovers,” Servidone said. “It’s very rare that we see them in an early tournament like this. Then come the end of January and February you see them in the crossover, now see them in the Section II duals, now see them in the class tournament, sectional tournament and state tournament so you see these guys a lot.”
West and assistant coach Jake Zanetti were also credited with tweaking the wrestle back or consolation bracket formats on Saturday.
“Kudos to them, they also had the wherewithal to set that program up so that the first-round non-semi losers go to a different bracket for fifth- and sixth-place and it gives a true third-place finish for the semifinal loser and avoids the five-match rule (limit),” Weeks said.
Shenendehowa’s Stevo Poulin earned the 99-pound title with a technical fall over Ballston Spa’s Nick Palso; Kiernan Shanahan earned a 15-4 major decision over Holland Patent’s lone 145-pound entry, T.J. Philpotts; Columbia’s Michael Gonyea pinned Schenectady’s Billal Zamani in 44 seconds for the 132-pound title and teammate Jake Edwards pinned Saratoga’s Frank Spatafora at 3:48 for the 152-pound trophy. Saratoga’s Jordan Sartin decisioned Jack Schiavo, 5-2 for the 113-pound title; Ballston Spa’s Tyler Barnes claimed the 170-pound title with his 9-4 decision over War Eagles’ Rich Conte followed by Scottie teammate Jake Cook who took the 182-pound title with his 9-0 major decision over Shenendehowa’s Parker Brooks. Schuylerville’s Orion Anderson earned a technical pin fall over Columbia’s Mikey Altomer;
The day had some glimpses into the future and some looks into an alternative wrestling universe.
“You’re seeing a lot of kids that you aren’t going to see again, teams from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, kids from Section IV, Section III we had a lot of mix of those teams,” West said. “We also had some small schools like Warrensburg, Whitehall, teams that you don’t traditionally see during your regular season.
“I think we had a good mix of teams, large-, smallschool, out-of-section, outof-state teams, I think everyone benefited from it.”