East Hartford And Danbury Tie For The LL Wrestling Title
What a great weekend of high school wrestling.
Yesterday we saw a wild day two at the LL tournament that followed up a great first day. The staff at Trumbull that ran the tournament made the executive decision to bump day one forward a bit and begin wrestling at 3:30 and do an extra round of consis on Friday. This meant that the blood round would start off day two which is almost a better substitute than Holiday Inn coffee.
For those that don’t know, the blood round is probably the most intense and anxiety filled round of any state/class tournament. If you win, you move onto next week, which in this case means the State Opens. And if you lose, your season is over.
I was fortunate to be able to help out with my high school team, Enfield High, this winter so I was in the corner for two blood round matches on Saturday that went different ways. At 126 we had senior Rob McNally wrestle against Laitham Arias of Hall. Rob was able to pick up two sets of back points in big scenarios to win 9-4 and lock up his spot in the State Opens.
At 152 we had sophomore Ryan Moeller face off against East Hartford senior Cooper Lavigne. Lavignes name will be brought up when we talk finals because he plays a big roll in the team scoring. The senior from East Hartford was able to tech Moeller 15-0.
The finals rolled around and going into them, Danbury was in the lead with East Hartford in close second and Fairfield Warde in third, but not close enough to clench the title. The Hornets of East Hartford had three wrestlers in the finals while the Hatters from Danbury had five competing for a LL title.
The finals began at 170 where Fairfield Wardes senior Will Ebert, who is committed to Binghamton, faced off against East Hartford Xavier Quiles. This match went quick. Ebert is a hammer in all three positions and made quick work of Quiles as he took him down early and picked up a first period pin.
At 182, Danbury rolled their first finalist out with sophomore Dominic Iaquinto who faced off against Connor Smith from Fairfield Prep. The Hatter sophomore who was rocking a sick mustache won the match with a 7-4 decision securing his first LL title and helping Danbury inch closer to a team title.
For the Hornets, they had Sammy Montovani wrestling in the fifth sixth match against Trumbulls Corbin Milne. Montovani picked up a crucial second period pin to help keep East Hartford alive.
In the 195 finals, Norwalks Brendan Gilchrist throttled Trumbull’s Aethan Munden as he pinned him early in the second. For the team race, the Hatters and Hornets each had an athlete wrestling, Devon Durant of East Hartford for third and Daniel Craig of Danbury for fifth, but both wrestlers dropped their matches and halted either squad from pushing forward.
The 220 match had some fireworks as Trumbull’s Lucas Cylwick squared off against Fairfield Wardes Nehemias Pettway. Both wrestlers didn’t do much from their feet in regulation and went into overtime tied 1-1. Pettway took bottom in the fifth period of the match and escaped to lead 2-1. In the second thirty second period of the match, Cylwick took bottom and hit a reversal on Pettway as he locked hands to win the match 4-2.
On other mats, we saw again Danbury and East Hartford athletes wrestling for placement on the podium. Adrian Martin-Davis of East Hartford pinned Anthony Berruecos of New Haven in the second period while Danbury’s Jhonnyel Ramirez was pinned by an FCIAC foe, the one seed Nicholas Augeri of Staples. This moved East Hartford closer to the team title.
Following the 220 bouts, we got my favorite finals match of the night when Nuh Ajdinoski of Danbury wrestled against Southingtons first year heavyweight Joseph Mazzarella for the 285 title. Ajdinoski put the pressure on Mazzarella early and often by pummeling in with under hooks and pushing Mazzarella out of bounds picking up two stall calls which resulted in a point in Ajdinoski favor.
Ajdinoski picked up a takedown late in the second period to push his lead to 3-1. Then in the third period, Mazzarella pressured into Ajdinoski and the Danbury heavyweight lat dropped Mazzarella pinning him to give Danbury a boost in the team race and landing Ajdinoski his first LL title.
While the pin by Ajdinoski was a blow to the Hornets in the race for a title, they got some help from their heavyweight Michael Warner. Warner picked up a 3-1 decision against New Britains Marquise Eason to take third.
At 106 we had a VERY important matchup as freshman Isaac Quiles of East Hartford battled with Danbury’s Deydon Soto. In the third, Quiles was up 9-2 with twenty seconds left. After a reset where Soto was on bottom, Quiles motioned to the ref that he was going neutral and this gave Soto one point making the score 9-3.
East Hartford was looking for a major decision, but when Quiles was unable to take Soto down again from his feet the Hornets had to settle for a minor decision. This was a slight push towards for East Hartford in the team race.
In the 113 final, Dominic Barrella from Ridgefield beat Dominick Spadaro of Warde 10-3. Then at 120, freshman Ben Zuckerman, the brother of NYU wrestler Izaake Zuckerman, took home his first LL title by gutting out a 1-0 win against Ridgefields Alex Blaha. East Hartford had Damion Jaggon wrestling for fifth, but was defeated 7-0 by Norwalks Phoenix Gardella.
At 126, the brother of Alex Blaha, Nathan Blaha wrestled against Southingtons Josh Howard where he pinned him in the second period. At 132, another Southington grappler took the mat. This time it was Ben Gorr who picked up a 6-1 decision over Norwalks Nick Fatone. Following the team race we got to see another weight where both the Hornets and Hatters had wrestlers looking to help their teams.
Jesse Defonce from Danbury beat William Smith of Fairfield Prep 5-2 to take third and Jayden Burney of East Hartford pinned Victor Petkov of Ridgefield in fifty two seconds to take fifth. At 138, Kai O’dell of Danbury pinned Southtingtons Colton Thorpe in the third period to help advance Danbury’s title chances. In the third place match, East Hartfords Jaeckez Mendez won a 4-2 decision over NFAs Connor Devega.
At 145, Logan Kovacs, the brother of NC State wrestler AJ Kovacs, picked up a major decision against Fairfield Preps Joseph Cardoza. A huge points pickup for the Hatters. East Hartford got a lot of help though from Zavier Hernandez of Norwalk medically defaulting out of the fifth place match. This meant that the Hornets would secure six team points.
With two weights left in the tournament, things got interesting. Following Alex Cardoza of Fairfield Prep defaulting out because of an injury giving Liam Bryne of Danbury third, Danbury held a twelve point lead. The only thing that’d get East Hartford back in contention was two pins.
In the fifth place matchup, Cooper Lavigne faced off against Trumbull’s Hayden Provencal who Lavigne lost to earlier in the tournament. Late in the third period, Lavigne turned Provencal and stuck him. The Hornets were now down by six in the team race with one wrestler left while Danbury had no one left.
Freshman Drayvn Roberts of East Hartford was facing off against Ridgefields Andrey Kosygin for first place. Early in the second, Roberts put Kosygin to his back and the gym erupted. Danbury has almost become a “villain” in the CT wrestling community because of how much they win so it wasn’t just the East Hartford fans cheering. Roberts pinned him and when we checked FLOARENA, the score read two teams in first place with 232 total team points.
We had co-champs in the LL’s. An unheard event. This was East Hartfords best LL finish since 1987 when they finished second in the LL’s. The Hornets will be sending twelve wrestlers to the State Opens while the Hatters will send nine to New Haven.