Wrestling
North rebounds with tournament victory
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Williamsville North's Tommy Kellner went 3-0 at 119 pounds during the inaugural Amherst Duals Team Tournament held Saturday at Amherst High School. Here Kellner attempts to pin Depew's Steve Buchta. North won the tournament. Photo by Joe Eberle

After losing tough league matches during the week against West Seneca West, 34-24 and Jamestown, 29-27, Williamsville North's varsity wrestling team rebounded with a first place finish at the inaugural Amherst Duals Team Tournament Saturday at Amherst High School.

"It was a difficult week because we lost some close matches that we had a chance to win so it was nice to come back on the weekend and win," said North coach Brian Swatland. "I thought we outwrestled every team that was there."

North went 3-0 at the tournament, defeating Depew, 49-25, Grand Island, 41-33, and Amherst, 54-33.

Tommy Keller (119), Jake Caprow (130), Nathanael Carbrey (140), Phil Constantinou, P.J. Abbarno and Matt Aloisio each went 3-0. Constantinou, Abbarno and Aloisio wrestled multiple weight classes. Ansar Khan (125), Abbas Rizvi (135) and Brad Adkins went 2-1. Adkins pinned his opponent at 275 for North to beat Grand Island.

Desmond Little (1-1), Matt Proven (1-2, 145), Steven Liebler (1-2, 112) and Mohamad Abidi (0-2) also competed for North. The Spartans had to forfeit weight classes at 96, 103 and 275.

In dual matches, Kellner (119), Caprow (135), Carbrey (140), Proven (145), Constantinou (152) and Aloisio (189) won against West Seneca West. Kellner (119),

Caprow (135), Carbrey (140), and Constantinou (160) had victories against Jamestown. Adkins lost by three at 215 to give Jamestown the victory.

"He showed a tremendous amount of courage going out

there and given what was on the line for us, was by no means his fault," said Swatland. "If we would have scored another point or two in earlier matches, we would have gotten another team point."

The last time North has beaten Jamestown was in 2000.

"Those are two of the elite teams in our league year after year and we wrestled well against them," said Swatland.

North (0-2) is off this week before returning to league action at Hamburg on Wednesday Dec. 20 and at Lancaster on Friday, Dec. 22. Both start at 6 p.m.

Williamsville East

The Flames dropped a 49-15 decision to Cheektowaga last Wednesday.

Sean Trabert pinned at 135 to give East a 6-0 lead. Max Cohen pinned at 125. Ben Mikac wrestled up a weight class and won by seven at 103. Zach Horton also wrestled up a weight class, losing by five at 112. Jacob Biechner lost 7-4 to Cheektowaga's Jared Massena at 119. Massena is the returning Section VI champion at 103.

Steve Meyer and Shaun Ricketts won at 160 and 119, respectively on the JV. Ricketts won by 13.

"Cheektowaga is one of the better teams," said East coach Henry Fumerelle. "They don't really have a weak weight class. They're strong from top to bottom."

East wrestled at home against Amherst on Monday and travel to Starpoint on Wednesday.

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com