Wrestling
Sweet Home wins controversial meet, places two champions at Akron tourney
by PATRICK J. NAGY Reporter

Chris Nadeau will always remember his first dual meet victory as coach of Sweet Home's wrestling team.

Down 29-24 at home against Tonawanda on Dec. 21, the Warriors were called for an illegal substitution which led to a 36-29 Panthers victory.

Tonawanda coaches attempted to put Kyle McGregor, who weighed in at 93 pounds, up two weight classes to compete at 112, and earn a forfeit win. (In high school, a wrestler can only bump up one weight class.)

After Nadeau found out what was going on, he immediately called a timeout and informed the official, who in turn, declared the 112-weight class a double forfeit. The move cut Sweet Home's deficit to 29-24 instead of 35-24.

Sweet Home's Gates Bateman and Matt Danwin closed out the meet with pins at 119 (1:55 over Joe Massaro) and 125 (3:46 over Justin Bacon), respectively, to secure the win.

"The controversy took away from the win in a way," said Nadeau. "I wish it didn't come down to that. I know their coaches well. We still would have won by a point but it was nice to get a first win."

Panthers who won against Tonawanda included Zach Fumerelle (defeated Jim Schaff, 6-2), Nic Stella (140, 19-4 technical fall over Josh Choate), Ryan Murray (152, pinned Ton Waterhouse in 2:34), Paul Fazekas (171, defeated Colton Gilber, 12-1), and Archie Owrey (215, forfeit). At 103, Daiquann Burney lost in triple overtime to Scott McGregor in 2:11 to put Tonawanda ahead, 29-24. Then the controversy hit.

Earlier in that week, Sweet Home lost 46-15 at Lancaster. Murray and Stella won by pinfall. Fazekas won 7-1. Owrey (3-2), Danwin (6-5), Fumerelle (3-2) and Bateman (3-1) all lost close matches.

"I wanted us to show up there and I think we did," said Nadeau. "We had three or four matches with one or two points."

Sweet Home closed out the 2006 portion of its schedule with

a sixth place finish at the Akron Tournament on Friday. With only ten wrestlers, the Panthers finished with 102½ points, 8½ away from fifth place LeRoy. Most teams carried 15 wrestlers.

Stella and Owrey were crowned champions at 140 and 215, respectively. Stella, ranked sixth in New York State, went 3-0, beating Falconer's Alex Ognibene, a top wrestler in Section VI, in the semifinals, and Ripley's Sajen Hunt, 21-6, in the finals. Owrey was 4-0 at 215, defeating Batavia's Dylan Goodsell, 7-4.

Bateman and Danwin lost in the finals at 112 and 119, respectively. Bateman fell 3-1 to West Seneca East's Nick Vitale; Danwin was caught on his back to trail 5-0 against Ripley's Abram Rowe and lost 12-2.

Murray went 3-1 to finish third at 152. Fumerelle was 2-2 at 130.

Burney didn't win a match at 103 but lost two close matches, one in triple overtime, and another by a couple of points.

Balsom and Fazekas were 1-2 at 171 and 160, respectively.

"To put four guys in the finals is impressive," said Nadeau. "A couple breaks here or there, we're in the top two."

Sweet Home (1-3) returns to action at 6 p.m. Wednesday when they host Clarence before traveling Friday and Saturday to Niagara County Community College for the 26th annual Niagara Falls Officials Association Tournament.

e-mail: pnagy@beenews.com