The LoHud Wrestling Blog

UPDATE 9:57: Myer loses 3-2. That’s the last of it. Time to bang out my story and go home. Home being the Holiday Inn Express.

UPDATE 9:53: Gecaj pins Longwood’s Benjamin Lee in 3:21.

UPDATE 9:51: Gecaj and Myer just started. The arena is almost empty at this point.

UPDATE 9:36: Amos Pierette trails 5-0 but came back to pin in the last minute. He runs across the mat in celebration and I wonder if he has a hard time stopping.

Myer and Gecaj the only guys left to go.

UPDATE 9:30: Castro wins 3-1 and lives another day.

Diaz falls.

UPDATE 9:26: Kris Castro leads 1-0 to start the third period.

In DI, which is now running waaay behind, Marc Diaz is down 9-1. Looks like Caputo will be the only North Rocklander in Day 2.

UPDATE 9:12: Jarron Saunders leaves the mat grabbing his shoulder in pain. Looks like he’s bowing out with an injury.

Peter Talesnik can’t escape the monkey-grip of Neal Vecellio as the last seconds tick off and loses 1-0. The wrestleback guys are dropping like flies.

UPDATE 9:03: Slane managed to go six minutes without giving up a point but Section 3’s James Loomis needed only 24 seconds of overtime to finish a shot. Slane’s season is over with a 2-0 defeat.

Let’s see if North Rockland teammate Marc Diaz fares any better.

UPDATE 9:00: Davidson ends his run 4-0.

Slane is still scoreless. Almost had an escape with 14 seconds to go but skipped out of bounds. Looks like he’s headed to OT.

UPDATE 8:56: Graybeal falls 14-3.

Davidson is losing 4-0 through two.

Slane is still 0-0 through two.

UPDATE 8:52: Kevin Davidson is down 2-0 after one. Graybeal is down 7-1 after two.

Joe Slane is also going.

UPDATE 8:47: Another one bites the dust in DII. Andrew Mancusi is pinned in 5:40.

Let’s see if Chris Graybeal can do any better.

UPDATE 8:39: Stauber, still with bandages all over his left shoulder, wins 6-2.

Boyle isn’t so lucky and loses 8-4.

UPDATE 8:35: Henry Stauber is up 5-0 after two. Tim Boyle is down 7-0 after two.

UPDATE 8:23: Can anybody tell me why DII moves faster than DI every round? Is there a bigger difference between the haves and have-nots, which leads to more pins and techs and shorter matches? That’s just a guess. Anybody have a good answer? It’s happened every round.

McCormack lost, FYI.

UPDATE 8:17: Oliveto wins 10-3. Could he possibly win out with his only tournament loss being to Realbuto? That’d be interesting.

Osleeb wins 10-2.

In DII, Greg Caneparo gave Nanuet a wrestler in the second day.

Mark McCormack is trying to add another win to Edgemont’s stable. He’s down 3-1 in the final seconds though.

UPDATE 8:09: Duckham is eliminated 9-1 in a match that took about 6:10 of clock time because no one noticed that the clock wasn’t running for a while.

Nick Oliveto leads 7-2 with 0:40 left.

Osleeb is ahead 4-0.

UPDATE 8:04: Kramer finishes off a 14-2 win. Speno also won, 2-0. At least one of them has a great chance to win tomorrow and place.

Duckham is in trouble, losing 7-0.

UPDATE 8:01: Kramer is walking to Saturday. He’s up 10-1.

Speno is somehow scoreless with 1:30 left.

Duckham, the third 103 guy, is down 2-0 in the second.

UPDATE 7:55: Matt Caputo is still alive, having held on to a 7-6 win in a 96 second-round wrestleback against Pat Skinner.

Asher Kramer and Sam Speno are up now.

UPDATE 7:50: Gecaj takes it to the ultimate tiebreaker where he takes top and clings for dear life to a rideout win, 3-2. That’s it for the first round.

Here are the wrestlers that lost in the first round but won their first wrestleback:

Division I: Jimmy Duckham, Joe Slane, Marc Diaz, Lucas Myer, Tim Gecaj
Division II: Andrew Mancusi, Kris Castro

UPDATE 7:46: Scopino lost 4-2. Gecaj is in overtime tied 1-1.

UPDATE 7:41: Second round of wrestlebacks now beginning. The winners of these matches will come back tomorrow with a chance to win one more match and place in the state. We’re running about an hour and 15 minutes behind schedule.

Scopino is down 4-1 to start the third. Gecaj, in his typical low-scoring fashion, is down 1-0 with a minute left.

UPDATE 7:36: By the way, we have three of the eight guys at 103 wrestlebacks—Kramer, SPeno, and Duckham. None are facing each other, however, so its possible all three could lose.

Scopino and Gecaj are up to complete the first round of wrestlebacks.

UPDATE 7:31: Lucas Myer’s goal was to win a match at states. He’s done that now. A four-point swing with nine seconds left gave him a 5-2 victory over Mike Almaviva of Section 2.

UPDATE 7:26: The internet connection is starting to falter. I was afraid I wouldn’t get back on. Keep your fingers crossed.

Ron Fermin got pinned. Degnan lost a decision.

Kris Castro won.

UPDATE 7:16: Joe Cummings just lost his second match and is out of the tournament earlier than a lot of people thought. I think it might have been an injury default but I’m not 100 percent sure because I was looking at Sean Degnan’s match on the other side of the room. Cummings was down 5-0 anyway.

Degnan is losing 4-1 with a minute to go.

Nick Terp lost 7-0.

UPDATE 7:07: Diaz takedown with 40 seconds left. He wins 7-3. Between him and Slane it was a nice effort by two North Rockland guys not mailing in the wrestleback when they fell behind.

UPDATE 7:02: Slane wins but O’Gorman and Graff lose 5-4 and 9-2, respectively.

Marc Diaz is down 2-0 in the second.

UPDATE 6:53: Slane now up 8-4 but that may not be the biggest problem for Section 3’s Matt Gray. He’s running out of blood time.

Arlington’s Dan Graff is down 4-0 at 145.

In DII, Dan O’Gorman has taken the mat.

UPDATE 6:49: Slane leads 5-3 to start the third. The bleeding continues.

UPDATE 6:39: Incredible turnaround at 140. Andrew Mancusi is down 1-0 all match until he scores a takedown at the buzzer to win 2-1.

Meanwhile Kevin Davidson wins 6-3. Finally a couple of wins in the wrestlebacks.

Joe Slane is down 3-1 in the second. Blood time. And shockingly it’s not for Slane, who as I recall bleeds like a fountain.

UPDATE: Ferranti loses a decision. He’s out. Then again, as Section 1’s second wild-card at DII 130 it’s probably a big deal just to get here.

UPDATE: Big gap without a powder blue uniform. But Tory Ferranti is on the mat now at 130.

UPDATE 6:02: Some team scores to update. Section 1 is now 6th in both Division I and Division II. Section 11 is leading Division I. Didn’t catch what section is leading DII.

Morato and Calvano both lost and are eliminated.

UPDATE 5:59: Two Nanuet guys going at the same time. John Morato and Anthony Calvano both losing big.

UPDATE 5:45: The last quarterfinal match just ended. This time, though, the organizers didn’t wait before starting the first round of wrestlebacks. Probably because we’re running an hour behind.

This is the first round where kids can be eliminated from the tournament completely. I’ll continue to update.

UPDATE 5:31: Pierrette just didn’t have the juice to get Sauer off him and lost. With that, Section 1 has no more kids above 160 pounds in the winner’s bracket.

Division II finished 5-8 in the quarterfinals.

UPDATE 5:24: Pierrette is down 2-0 after one to top seed Kacee Sauer of Section 5. Sauer is pushing the pace like crazy and Pierrette already looks gassed.

UPDATE 5:20: Division 1 wrestlers went 8-5 in the quarterfinals (including Lenzi). Division II is 5-7 with the Pierrette match still to go.

UPDATE 5:18: Only one local left to wrestle a quarterfinal, Amos Pierrette.

UPDATE 5:14: Wang won 6-3 and was noticeably aggressive in the third period. Edgemont coach George DiChiara said he forced Wang to open up his offense after he’d been conservative for a match and a half.

UPDATE 5:00: I think I skipped over Andrew Lenzi. He majored his kid 14-5.

Wang is tied with Section 4’s Derek Wignall 3-3 in the second period.

UPDATE 4:54: Genovesi gets the takedown in the final period to win 5-4. His opponent James Holden took a good shot in the last few seconds but Genovesi sat on his hands.

Saunders was pinned.

Ray Wang is up now.

UPDATE 4:51: Genovesi is up 3-2 after two. Peter Talesnik lost 11-1.

UPDATE 4:43: Graybeal is cradled at 3:12.

UPDATE 4:40: Ryan Tompkins wins 4-3 at 145. There is only one more DII guy to go in the winner’s bracket—Scott Genovesi at 160.

In DII, Chris Graybeal is down 7-0 to 2-seed Owen Scott of Section 5. His Edgemont teammate Ray Wang is on deck.

UPDATE 4:25: Tim Boyle gets pinned in 5:32 at 135. The losses are starting to mount for Section 1, erasing some of the luster from last round.

UPDATE 4:18: Henry Stauber loses to a John Glenn wrestler, Nick Meinsen, 9-4.

UPDATE 4:13: A pair of DII guys go down at 130. Greg Caneparo lost in OT and Mark McCormack got pinned in 1:11.

UPDATE 4:02: Watterson won 8-7 in overtime. Then I ran off to talk to him, which is why I didn’t update.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched Steve Rodrigues win 13-1 and Flamio win 8-1. That sets up a fifth meeting between them in tomorrow’s semis.

UPDATE 3:48: Turn for the worse. Watterson gives up the tying points with 25 seconds left and Osleeb loses 8-6. Watterson now in overtime.

UPDATE 3:44: Watterson is up 6-4 with 1:29 left. Osleeb is down 6-5 with 1:10 left.

UPDATE 3:38: Gottfried won 12-1.

UPDATE 3:33: Realbuto beats Oliveto for a fourth time this season.

Jimmy Kyreakedes won at 103.

Penn Gottfried is up 8-0.

UPDATE 3:30: No such luck at 103. Asher Kramer and Sam Speno both lost.

UPDATE 3:27: Three out of four winners at 96 pounds. Trey Aslanian and Drew Longo won and will face each other in a DII semifinal tomorrow. Mike Parise also won, 3-0. Matt Caputo fell 11-0.

UPDATE 3:06: Section 1 is in sixth place in team standings in DII after one round. Section 1 is in fourth place in DI after one round.

UPDATE 3:00: Division I had a bad finish among the locals and finished 13-11 (including two CHSAA kids).

Here’s a breakdown by weight class:

DI lightweights – 9-1; DI middleweights 3-4; DI heavyweights 1-6

DII lightweights – 5-3; DII middleweights 3-4; DII heavyweights 4-2

UPDATE 2:58: Scopino gave up a takedown and a reversal in the last 35 seconds to lose 10-6. That’s it for the first round. Quarters begin now.

UPDATE 2:54: Scopino’s match is being slowed by a ton of blood time. Six of the eight other mats are empty as they wait for this one to finish. Turns out they won’t start quarterfinals until every first-rounder is over. It’s tied 4-4 with 1:13 left.

UPDATE 2:48: Gecaj loses to the No. 2 seed, Zeal McGrew of Section 2, 5-3. So both of John Jay’s big boys go down against Section 2.

Scopino got an escape and then a quick takedown to go up 4-2. Still in the second period. Blood time now.

UPDATE 2:45: Myer’s incredible run took a hit with a loss to John Acors of Section 2. Acors put him on his back at the 3:13 mark.

Teammate Gecaj is down 3-2 with a minute left.

Andy Scopino is down 2-1 with 1:30 left.

UPDATE 2:39: Tim Gecaj and Lucas Myer are going on adjacent mats. Gecaj got taken down by a high single but escaped and is down 2-1.

UPDATE 2:34: Quarterfinals may start on some mats before the first round is over. I’ll continue to update. However, I’m going to have to run out for some interviews this round so there may be a little time between updates. I’ll post whenever I return to the computer.

UPDATE 2:20: Ron Fermin faced a very good kid, Angelo Malvestuto of Section 6, and couldn’t keep up. Malvestuto, the 3-seed, pinned him in 1:18.

UPDATE 2:17: Section 1 went 13-8 in the first round of Division II.

UPDATE 2:14: Pierrette takes over in Period 2 and pins. That’s it for the Division II wrestlers in the first round.

UPDATE 2:10: Amos Pierette is still scoreless in his 285 match. He’s starting the second round on bottom.

UPDATE 2:05: Kris Castro got pinned at 215.

Because DII is moving so much faster they just announced that DI heavyweights will be wrestling in the DII section.

UPDATE 2:02: Thrilling match at 160. Genovesi got a takedown with two seconds left to beat Section 8’s Joe Giametta 8-6. “I had to work for that,” joked Bill Swertfager.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Joe Cummings lost his match 8-2.

UPDATE 1:55: Salesian’s Nick Terp got pinned at 171. Genovesi is down 2-0 halfway through his 160 match.

UPDATE 1:44: Degnan falls 15-2. Waiting for Scott Genovesi to take the mat at 160.

UPDATE 1:41: We’re all the way up to 189 in DII. Sean Degnan is losing 7-0 to Colin Palmer of Section 6.

UPDATE 1:36: Strong overtime for Wang. After no one scoring in the first he chose down in the second OT. He escaped immediately and then took Vecellio down for insurance and a 5-2 win.

Diaz lost 5-0.

UPDATE 1:32: Wang wasn’t able to score again and is headed to OT.

Marc Diaz is down 2-0 after one period.

UPDATE 1:24: Graff loses 6-4. Jarron Saunders just pinned his kid at 171 in a hurry.

Ray Wang is having a little trouble with Section 5’s Neal Vecellio. He’s only up 2-0 in the second.

UPDATE 1:18: The action’s moving slower now. And Division II is getting way ahead of Division I.

Peter Talesnik wins 10-2. Dan Graff is down 3-2 in the third period.

UPDATE 1:03: Tompkins forces overtime then barely escapes in the ultimate tiebreaker period for a 4-3 advance.

Chris Graybeal won big. Shut the kid out I believe.

UPDATE 12:53: O’Gorman goes down 4-3 then escapes to force overtime. Nothing happens in the first OT. Oskar Ramirez of Section 11 escapes easily in the second OT to go up 5-4, then hangs onto O’Gorman to prevent a tie. O’Gorman falls 5-4.

Ryan Tompkins is down 1-0 with 1:40 left.

Andrew Mancusi was pinned at 140.

UPDATE 12:50: Dan O’Gorman is up 3-2 with a minute left.

UPDATE 12:36: Davidson loses 12-0.

UPDATE 12:31: All that time missed is about to cost Kevin Davidson. he got stuck with a bad seed and had to face top seed Stephen Dutton in the first round. As we speak he’s down 10-0 to Dutton in the second round. However, Davidson is a guy I could see making some noise in wrestlebacks. Don’t be surprised if he places despite this result.

At 135, Joe Slane went down 5-2 to Kevin Panebianco of Section 11. Slane was a ball of energy early but lost it by the end. Not enough zip to come back.

UPDATE 12:17: By my count, Section 1 is 18-5 as of this moment. I think that’ll come down before this round is over as our bigger guys aren’t as good overall as our small guys. But still, that’s pretty incredible. If you throw in Lenzi it’s 19-5 for the area. That number includes Duckham, who lost a decision earlier in the day.

UPDATE 12:12: Boyle wins by that same 6-5 score.

Andrew Lenzi destroys his guy and moves on in a probable state title run.

UPDATE 12:10: Henry Stauber beats 4-seed Justin Hyde of Section 4 5-3. That’s the second 4-seed a Section 1 guy has knocked off, following Kyreakedes.

At 135 Tim Boyle is up 6-5 with a minute left.

UPDATE 12:03: Division II had three wrestlers at 130 pounds. Two—Greg Caneparo and Mark McCormack—won. McCormack came back from 3-1 to go up 7-4 before winning 7-6. Tory Ferranti was beaten by Lance Compton, the second seed.

UPDATE 11:45: Josh Duhamel, er, I mean Ryan Osleeb is an 8-5 winner at 125. Was up 6-5 with a couple seconds left.

UPDATE 11:40 S-Rod is a winner. I think by tech, although I was watching Osleeb because Rodrigues was killing so bad. Osleeb is up 6-4 in the third. Injury time right now.

As I typed this, Flamio just pinned Ryan Spinner of Section 10 in about 0.0002 seconds.

UPDATE 11:32: Sorry, forgot Matt Caputo. He won.

S-Rod is up 8-2 in the first.

UPDATE 11:29: Penn Gottfried redeems DII with a tech fall over Ryan Hake of Section 11.

Flamio, S-Rod, and Osleeb coming up.

UPDATE 11:23: The first set of guys go down, all in Division II. Mike Kar, and two Nanuet guys—Anthony Calvano and John Morato—lost.

By the way, Oliveto will face Realbuto in the quarterfinals. I believe this is the fourth meeting between them (and a rematch of the sectional final).

UPDATE 11:18: Oliveto survives a scare from Chris Perez to win 11-7 in overtime. Oliveto almost gave up back points as regulation was ending but pulled his shoulder up just in time.

Billy Watterson just pinned Dylan Kavanaugh. The lightweights are killing.

UPDATE 11:08: Realbuto, Speno, Kyreakedes and Kramer all won. The only one I’m not sure about is Jimmy Duckham. He was down a point late. If he won then Section 1 is 7-0.

Nick Oliveto is up 4-1 in the second period.

Internet is now up and running.

Winners so far:

Drew Longo, Trey Aslanian, Mike Parise.

I think I missed Sam Speno and Asher Kramer while dealing with the wireless connection so I will find those out.

Brian Realbuto is up 5-4 after two periods.

I’ll keep updating as results come in.