The LoHud Wrestling Blog

4:10 They kicked us out of the arena while they rearranged the floor, including the media seating. But I’m back for the duration.

The latest Division I team standings are follows:

Section 11 – 219.5
Section 1 – 178.5
Section 2 – 177
Section 8 – 148
Section 9 – 146.5
Section 5 – 146
Section 6 – 103
Section 4 – 92
CHSAA – 87.5
Section 3 – 53
Section 10 – 7
PSAL – 5

And for Division II:

Section 5 – 249.5
Section 4 – 227.5
Section 6 – 204
Section 3 – 189
Section 2 – 135
Section 7 – 98.5
Section 1 – 73
Section 11 – 48
Section 10 – 30.5
Section 8 – 28.5
Section 9 – 19
PSAL – 11

As you can see, Section 1 is still in second place in DI, but it’s by a hair’s breadth over Section 2. The good news is that Section 2 has three finalists to Section 1’s six. The bad news is that Section 11 has nine finalists and a 41-point lead. Barring a miracle it’s not going to be caught.

2:40 That’s the end of all consolation matches. Six of the eight mats are in the process of being broken down and the building is being cleared. Fans have to pay again to watch the finals.

The parade of champions is scheduled to begin at 5:45. Championship wrestling will start about half an hour later, at 6:15.

2:35 With all locals through with consolations, here’s the medal count so far:

Third place: Ramos, Gottfried

Fourth place: Tompkins

Fifth place: Sam Speno, Luke Speno, Neivert, Manley, Carter

Sixth place: Thakur, Longo

2:22 Neivert gets a rare tech fall. We haven’t seen many of those. He teched John Daddino of Sewanhaka East, 18-3, for fifth place.

2:20 Carter goes up 13-8, then pins James Charland of Northern Adirondack for good measure. The pin came at 5:26. Carter gets sixth.

2:16 Injury timeout in Carter’s 152 match. He’s down 8-6  with 15 secs to go in the second.

2:15 Luke Speno wins his fifth-place match 9-6. He and his brother will both get fifth-place trophies.

2:11 Ramos pins Fairpost’s David Foley in 3:25 to take third place. He looks happy but exhausted.

Manley wins 9-7 in overtime over Brian Walsh of Watervliet. He gets fifth place. Longo lost 8-3 to Josh Micek of Maple Grove and takes sixth.

2:08 Longo lost. Manley is in OT.

2:05 Tompkins lost 8-2 to Anthony Volpe of Longwood. He takes fourth.

2:02 Thakur lost by decision to Jimmy Kloc of Iroquois, 7-2. He gets sixth.

2:00 Manley and Longo are on adjacent mats. Manley is down 2-1 in the first. Longo is down 2-0 after two.

1:55 Fox Lane is in third place among all large schools. Wantagh of Section 8 and Port Jervis of Section 9 are first and second, respectively.

1:48 Gottfried completes his comeback with a 9-5 decision over Ken Eaton of Adirondack to win third place. It was actually 6-5 but Eaton threw his headgear and then said some things to the ref that presumably weren’t, “Thank you for correctly applying your tremendous officiating acumen.”

1:36 Speno wins 2-0 to secure fifth place. A freshman wild card could do a lot worse.

1:30 Sam Speno will begin the final round against Joe Barbato of Wantagh.

1:26 To sum up the remaining consis:

Wrestling for third place: Tompkins, Ramos, Gottfried.

Wrestling for fifth place: Sam and Luke Speno, Thakur, Neivert, Manley, Longo, Carter.

1:14 Neivert gives up a takedown in OT and loses 3-1.

Steve Ramos beat John Glenn’s Chris Carlucci and will wrestle for third. That’s good for Section 1 because John Glenn is in Section 11.

Will Carter got pinned at 4:28 by Jon Strong of Frewsburg. He’ll go for fifth.

1:11 Ardsley’s guys at 135 and 145 go down. Dan Manley and Derrick Longo lost 10-2 and 10-4, respectively, and will be in the fifth-place matches.

In a bit of a surprise, Tompkins pinned Luke Speno, who was ahead in points, at 4:44. Tompkins gets the berth in the consi final. Speno settles for a shot at fifth.

1:09 The kid looks OK. He was moving around so it’s not a spine issue.

Guess who’s on blood time. That’s right, Neivert’s wrestling.

1:06 Uh oh, there’s a gurney being rolled out to one of the mats. Didn’t see what happened. It’s not a Section 1 kid.

1:02 Brief internet outage got me scared. It’s been good so far.

Thakur lost 4-3 to Josh Halladay and will compete for fifth.

12:53 They just announced the latest team standings over the loudspeaker. Section 1 is still in second, but it’s falling further behind Section 11. Section 1 has 158.5 points to 11’s 200.5.

12:43 Anyone who’s still alive at this point is guaranteed to place top 6. In addition to the six finalists, that includes Sam Speno, Thakur, Luke Speno, Ramos, Neivert, Gottfried, Manley, Derrick Longo, and Carter.

12:38 Joe Smaldone forfeited to Penn Gottfried, sending Gottfried to the consolation finals. That’s a great place to be considering his disappointing first-round loss.

12:19 In case you haven’t been following all morning, six locals won their semifinals and will wrestle for a state title tonight. The Big 6 are Brian Realbuto, Steve Rodrigues, Justis Flamio, Joey Grippi, Andrew Lenzi, and Genta Murayama.

I haven’t mentioned Beacon’s Ryan Tompkins because he’s out of our area, but he lost his semifinal 7-4.

12:15: Sam Speno just lost his consi semifinal to Chris Brienza of St. Anthony’s, 6-4. He’ll wrestle for fifth later.

11:55 Attention is divided often here because there are eight matches going on at the same time. Frequently two locals are wrestling concurrently. In that case I pay attention to the semifinalist over the consolation kid. But I haven’t forgotten the consis.

Joey Hauser dropped a 16-10 decision to Andre Berry of Uniondale. Luke Speno beat Calhoun’s Mack Maldarelli 7-0.

In DII, Penn Gottfried beat Peru’s Troy Seymour 2-1 in triple-overtime. Ryan Osleeb lost to Palmyra-Macedon’s Tyler Marlow 7-2. Danny Manley and Derrick Longo both won.

11:48 Kenny Betts of Fredonia just won his 268th match, a New York State record. He is a five-time Section 6 champion.

11:37 I made a mistake yesterday on the blog and in my newspaper story. I said that 19 Section 1 wrestlers were guaranteed to place. That was not correct. Only the 11 who won their two matches yesterday were guaranteed to place. Basically I forgot one of the consolation rounds. So while 19 could place, if those in the consi bracket lost their first match today, they did not place.

I hope that mistake didn’t cause too much confusion. There’s obviously enough confusion on my end for everyone.

I’m going to change my earlier blog post.

11:32 Neivert can’t make it two Ossining guys in the finals, as he falls 11-3 to Matt Parlier of Port Jervis.

11:27 Blood time for Clay Neivert. I think that’s 438 consecutive matches he’s needed it.

Down 7-1 in the second period, he’s got some work to do.

11:21: For the second match in a row, James Brundage pinned a guy with five seconds left. This time it was Amsterdam’s John Paris in the semifinals. Paris had just tied the score at 3-3 when, with both on their feet, he slipped and fell on his back. Bad place to be against Brundage. Brundage fell on top of him and put his shoulders down.

Carter beat Orlando 3-2 in their match.

11:15: Brundage is up now. And Will Carter and Chris Orlando are going at each other in the consis.

11:10: I’m going to stop writing the word “update.” You know it’s an update.

Ramos just lost his semifinal 4-0 to Josh Veltre of Greece-Olympia. It was really 1-0, but once Ramos realized he wasn’t going to escape I think he let Veltre put him on his back. Veltre chose bottom to start the second period. and escaped. Ramos couldn’t do the same in the third. At one point he spun to his feet and was a half step from jumping away, but Veltre lashed out blindly and grabbed his ankle. Impressive desperation grab.

UPDATE 11:02: Thakur managed to escape three times but never had much hope of taking down the stronger Lenzi, who won 14-3. Guess Udi’s magic carpet ride is over.

Steve Ramos is on the mat now.

UPDATE 10:54: Big Thakur-Lenzi match is about to start.

UPDATE 10:47: Genta Murayama is singlehandedly saving face for Division II. His reversal in the opening seconds of the third period gave him a 2-1 semifinal win over third-seed Devin Soper.

As bad as it’s been for the small schools in the early going, Genta will give them a finalist, something they didn’t have last year.

UPDATE 10:19: Section 1 is 3 for 4 in the early going. Realbuto, Flamio, and Grippi won their semifinals. Grippi’s 9-8 last-second victory had the crowd going wild and left Joe Amuso crying as Grippi jumped into his arms like Magic Johnson and Kareem.

Sam Speno dropped his semifinal. For a freshman to get this far at all is great.