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Thursday, December 22
Sudbury Town Crier Article: 12.22.05
The second week of action in Massachusetts school boy grappling began with Lincoln-Sudbury getting by an upstart gaggle of Grey Ghosts from Westford on Monday last, 45-27.
The match was a rescheduled dual originally supposed to be the season opener for both squads. The Ghost program is now being headed by former Edinboro State Division I All-American, Dave Shunamon, who grew up and prepped in the Lowell suburb of Tewksbury. If anything, Ghostie grapplers will be throwing bodies every which way in the next few years. It was a Dual County League match for the Warriors and a win in the DCL is a good thing.
On Wednesday, December 14, in the Westford suburb of Acton, L-S put another notch on the DCL belt with a hard-earned win over the host A-Bers, 49-22. A-B has a new coaching staff, also, and the Colonial grapplers look like they've been paying attention in the practice room. The numbers are up for the Colonial boys, which could be a frightening thing for members of the Dual County Wrestling Association.
Coach Harry Coffin shuffled and bumped his lineup against A-B, proving that depth is dangerous. The evening began at 135 and Jon Nichols of L-S, getting his first varsity call, losing a 13-5 major decision to Max Tabachnik of A-B. At 140, pretzel maker meister, Eliot Gibbs, one of L-S's captains, bent and twisted Tom Van Langen of A-B, adding salt to the Colonial's wounds with a 16-0 tech fall. At this point L-S jumped ahead in team score 5-4.
Joe Barbato, A-B's captain, got Adam Lane of L-S in the first period at :57 in the 145 pound match. At 152 Pete Ruymann of L-S, another young man who answered his first varsity call, lost a tough match to Colonial Garrett Hoppe, 9-5. This made the team score, A-B 13 L-S 5.
At 160, Chris Rowe of L-S received the royal ceiling light inspection tour with guidance provided by Dave Oxnard of Colonialville in 1:58. At 171, Justin Nicholson got L-S back on the winning track with a strong performance by sticking Adam Haisip of A-B in 1:02.
Then came one of the wilder matches of this or any season. Eric Pennington, wrestling out of the 189 hole, and who resembles the Tasmanian devil when on the mat, won a slugfest, 15-14 over Mike Volkert. When Pennington takes to Mr. Resilite older wrestling fans need one of those heart starter upper thingamajigs, close at hand.
Jesse Smith of L-S stepped on the mat at 215 coming face to face with Teke Omoegbukse of A-B. Teke outlasted ol' Jesse 12-5. And thus the score became a scary 22-15,in favor of A-B.
Coffin was then presented with a dilemma put before many coaches. The question was, should L-S accept the forfeits at 275 and 103, copping an easy 12 points toward the team score, or, forget about them? Ever the gentleman, Coffin often turns forfeits into no contests, saving some face for the opposing coaching staff and squad members. But Coffin decided to err on the side of caution and took the 12 points from the two forfeits. If only we could see into the future. As it turned out, L-S didn't need the twelve to walk with a victory, but Harry didn't know that at the time. Taking the forfeits pushed the team score in L-S's favor, 27-22. The 22 points were all the Colonials would score on the evening.
At 112, Steve Baez of L-S made quick work of Seth Meyers by pasting Meyers in 1:49. At 119, Dave Garelik of the Warrior squad made quicker work of Alex Turazza of A-B in :47.
At 125, Ryan McCann of L-S, continued his winning ways by beating Alex Webber in a technical fall, 20-4. In the last match of the evening in beautiful Actonville, Will Binder of L-S, stuck Pete McGraw in 2:42.
Final score: L-S 49, A-B 22. The win pushes the Warrior DCL record to 2-0.
Next up for L-S would be the crusade for its fifth win of the Lisitano Memorial Tourney in the last five years Saturday in Wakefield.
The crusade for the fifth straight Lisitano Memorial winner's trophy went for naught. The tourney this year was spiced with some very strong competition coming from traditionally strong D-1 programs like Methuen and south coast powerhouse Plymouth South. Catholic Memorial is in the up cycle this year and Reading has once again bounced back into prominence. The aforementioned teams above were ahead of L-S when the final whistle was tooted. The final team standings were: 1. Plymouth South, 241; 2. Methuen, 193.5; 3. Catholic Memorial, 169.5; 4. Reading, 161.5; 5. L-S and Wakefield, 151; 7. Malden Catholic, 86; 8. Watertown, 80; 9. Malden, 63; 10. Lynnfield-N.Reading, 61; 11. Arlington, 60; 12. Lexington, 54; 13. Pentucket, 46; 14. Belmont, 26.
In the Lisitano, L-S placed nine out of twelve wrestlers, a goodly sum for the young Warriors. Seniors Gibbs, placed third at 140, and Dave Ciampa, at 119, was sixth, the other seven placers were all underclassmen. Also placing sixth were frosh Jordan Syatt, at 103, and sophomore Jon Starr, at 135, along with Ciampa. Placing fourth were a pair of juniors, Jesse Smith at 215 and Giant Jason Orlando at 275. Placing third were Gibbs, and Eric "the Whirlygig" Pennington, at 189, a junior. The runnerup 160 in the tourney was Nico Von Stackelberg, who had a superb day. The lone champion was Justin Nicholson, at 171 who destroyed all four of his opponents on the way to the top spot. In the matches for fifth and sixth, third and fourth and first and second, wrestling fans were treated to a three ring circus as all of the above were conducted at the same time. The sight was a head spinner, to say the least. In the tourney placing matches, Syatt was stuck by Andy Lane of Pentucket in 1:06. Ciampa lost an extremely close match, 5-4, to Geoff Diehl of Watertown. Jon Starr was whacked 15-5 by Ian Tranillo of Lexington.
However, all of the above flashed traces of brilliance during the day. In the third place matches, Gibbsie put a whoopin' on Chris Spinelli of Lynnfield-N.Reading, 9-3. In the semis, Gibbsie was beaten by the eventual tourney champion. Pennington totally dominated Ricky Magill of Reading showing the Reading lad the lights in the first period. Jesse Smith got the worst draw for third, the number one seeded Derek Henry of Malden, and Henry snuck by Jesse 7-2. In a controversial situation at 275, Orlando, who thought a whistle had signaled out of bounds, turned from his opponent, Connor Gildea of Reading, and headed back to the little circle. Gildea, upon urging from his coaches, pounced on Orlando, took him down and pinned the lanky lad from Sudbury. Orlando was ahead at this point. The L-S coaches complained, but to no avail, as always.
In the two championship matches, Von Stackelberg capped a terrific day of grappling in a losing cause to Adam Whidden of Plymouth South by decision, 11-4. It was Von Stackelberg's first loss of the season. And Justin Nicholson, after getting taken down by Johnny Rosario of Catholic Memorial, came back from the bottom to show Rosario the ceiling ornamentation in the Wakefield fieldhouse in the first period and walk home with the one championship ribbon on the evening.
All in all, not a bad week for Warrior wrestling, two DCL wins and a strong finish in a good tourney. By the time of publication, L-S will have met rival Newton South in a DCL contest down in Newton. Friday, however, wrestling fans are in for a real treat in the friendly confines of the Warrior gymnasium. Coach Bobby Annaballi and his Natick Redmen will be invading Warriorville. Natick won the Milford tourney Saturday, for the fourth year in a row. Look for a packed house and a thrill a minute. This match is a must see on every wrestling fan's schedule.
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