wrestling

The Democrat & Chronicle reports today that  the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Wrestling Tournament will not be held in Rochester again, until at least 2013.

Last year's tournament was held at the Blue Cross Arena and was a treat for area wrestling fans, that had a much shorter drive than Albany to watch the event.

Section 5 officials were pushing to have the state rotate the tournament each year with Albany, but the NYSPHSAA just accepted a bid by the Times Union Center in Albany to host the event until 2013.

I can guess that money was a huge reason why, but the NYSPHSAA might have had some other reasons why Rochester won't get another shot to host the tournament for a while.

The Blue Cross Arena is a great place to host large events, but there were a couple of major issues that upset a lot of people last year. 

The biggest was the parking and traffic.

The most common complaint people that attended the tournament had was that there was simply no place to park. In order to get a decent parking spot (which I believe cost $15 per day), you had to arrive well before the opening round matches and leave your vehicle where it was. If you showed up even an hour after the first match of the day, you were looking at a 20 minute walk in freezing cold conditions.

Rochester vastly underestimated the amount of people that are high school wrestling fans and did not prepare for the amount of vehicles that were in the city. There weren't enough police officers to direct traffic and people often had to sit and wait for traffic problems to be resolved by officers, which were understaffed and were doing all they could in order to try to maintain order.

Another issue that was not a problem for fans, but was for state officials and the media was the wireless Internet was down on both days. The state site was supposed to be updating results as each match ended and because of an unexplained lack of Internet access were not able to do that.

Media members from all over the state that were reporting the event could not get updates and stories out in a timely manner. We were told that our options were to go find a coffee house with free Internet or go over to the hotel across the street and pay for wireless access. I drove back to Batavia to submit my stories, but wound up pushing deadline for some stringer work I was doing for Varsity 845.

It is a shame that a great tournament will not be in Rochester for a long time, or possibly ever again. Money and mismanagement are the reasons.

 Holley's Ken Ryan and Kendall's Cody Lansberry were both stud wrestlers in the Genesee Region League for two of the more storied programs in the area.

Ryan, a freshman at Niagara County Community College, won a 16-4 major decision over Lansberry, a freshman at Alfred State, Thursday night  to help his team to a 42-3 victory.

NCCC coach Eric Knuutila earned his 356th career win, passing Iowa's Dan Gable on the all-time wins list by a college coach, at any level. He is the second all-time leader in wins at the NJCAA level. Dale Thomas of Oregon State is the all-time wins leader with 616 victories.

Ryan had a 168-50 career record for the Hawks and Lansberry went 112-48 for the Eagles.

 After Keiffer Phillips pinned Batavia's Brandon Shea in 1:11 at 152 pounds at 152 pounds, Greece Arcadia had a 24-3 lead and looked to have the Monroe County League match in hand.

But Troy Ireland turned the momentum with a decision win, then there were three forfeits, and the lightweights came through as the Blue Devils downed the visiting team 29-24 Wednesday.

Ireland's match only got three points for Batavia, but after 24-straight points for the Titans, it was three points that changed the way the Blue Devil grapplers looked at the situation.

The biggest moment of Ireland's 3-2 win came late in the second period, when he slammed opponent Alex O'Brien to the mat with some serious force. Ireland was not rewarded with any points, but that single move might have been the reason Arcadia never scored another point.

Ryan Darch, Anthony D'Aurizio and Dylan Goodsell each received a forfeit, and the score was tied at 24 when Josh Mase was ready to take on Nick Baker at 103 pounds.

Mase, who took fourth at SuperSectionals last season as a sophomore, made very quick work of Baker, pinning him in just 58 seconds.

Vin Klimjack received a forfeit at 112 and Nick Lazarony wrapped up the match with a 7-5 victory over Matt Ellis at 119 pounds, which was the final match of the night.

The Blue Devils downed Victor 35-28 in the opener and after Wednesday's home opening win over Arcadia, are 2-0 in the league and 7-0 overall.

Here are some more photos from the Batavia/Arcadia match.

Sorry for the delay with the video. My new laptop has imovie08 on it and I couldn't figure out how to use it. But the problems are solved and there won't be a delay like this again.

Attica's Dylan Dabolt made it to the quarterfinals at the University at Buffalo Open to start the season.

The UB sophomore lost to Joe Langel of Rutgers in the quarters, but has not had any results posted on the UB Web site since.

He had a 3-4 dual meet record and an 8-10 overall record as a freshman according to Dabolt's UB profile. 

He won the B bracket at the NYS Collegiate Championships at 125 pounds with a win over Army's Lance Penhale.

Dabolt - a pharmacy major - was a three-year captain for the Blue Devils and had a 40-6 record as a senior. He had 172 victories while wrestling for Attica. The three-time sectional champion earned All-American honors in high school twice.

Jared Quinn recorded his first career double-double to lead Alexander to a 58-49 road win over Holley in a boys basketball game Tuesday night.

Quinn had 13 points and 10 boards to lead the Trojans, who improve to 2-2.

Kyle Woodruff connected on all 11 free throw attempts and scored 15 points, with Troy Shelnut adding 11.

Guy Hills had 16 points and Brian Mitchell added 10 for the Hawks (0-3).

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 The Elba boys basketball team had a rough start to its league schedule, getting thrashed by visiting Kendall 62-36.

Colt Tooley hit five 3-pointers in scoring a game-high 21 points and Josh Laureano helped out with 16 points.

Sonny Guiliano led the Lancers (1-2) with 14 points.

Kendall is 2-1.

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Notre Dame had an impressive first showing of the season, whipping visiting Lyndonville 92-36.

Kevin Francis scored 14 of his game-high 22 points in the opening frame as the Fighting Irish jumped out to a 24-2 lead. He also had six steals in the game.

Greg Barr had 12 points and 12 rebounds and Tommy Rapone added a dozen points. Vinny Zambito pitched in 11 points.

Andrew Hydock led the Tigers with 13 points.

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Noah Seward dropped in 15 points while pulling down 12 boards as Oakfield-Alabama easily downed Byron-Bergen 65-38.

Brad Riner pitched in five points and seven dimes while both A.J. Kehlenbeck and Sam McCracken had 10 points apiece.

Tyler Sass and Trevor Laurie had 11 points each while Bryan White added 11 boards for the Bees (1-1)

O-A is 3-0.

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Joe Drummond scored 25 points and Jamell Johnson added 22 as C.G. Finney blasted host Wheatland-Chili 90-39.

Alex Stryker had 13 points and Andy Lund pitched in 12 for the Wildcats.

Finney is 6-0. 

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The Batavia hockey team evened up at 2-2 with a 5-3 win over Geneva/Waterloo.

Will Mulcahy and Erik Pokornowski had a pair of goals each for the Blue Devils, with Corey Kocent pitching in a goal with an assist.

Pat Finnell handed out three assists with Tim Finnell helping out with a pair.

Rich Paganello made 14 saves in net.

Geneva/Waterloo falls to 2-3.

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Holley got pins from Dillon Murphy (135 pounds), Quinton Murphy (125), Derek Fostano (189) and Kyle Steadman (215) in beating Kendall 42-33 in a GR wrestling match Tuesday.

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Alexander downed Barker 47-29 on the mat Tuesday.

Dylan Shea pinned Garrett Fuerch in 3:41 at 152 pounds and Dustin Say dropped  James Lapp in 3:57 at 171.

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The Notre Dame girls basketball team opened up with a 51-32 victory over host Lyndonville Tuesday.

Trisha Pike led the Fighting Irish with 15 points, five rebounds and six steals.

Jill Marshall had nine points with Nichole Hart and Liz Geandreau pitching in eight apiece.

Molly Burgess had 11 points for the Tigers (1-2).

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Despite Jenna Merica's 15 points and Allison Macomber's 11 points and nine boards, Le Roy couldn't get past Dansville, losing to the visiting squad 53-36.

Margaret Infantino had 18 points, 11 rebounds and six dimes for the Mustangs (6-1).

Le Roy falls to 0-3.

 The Alexander wrestling team topped Pavilion 48-30 last night.

The Trojans had four pins in the victory, topped by Steve Geyer, who pinned Ray Colvin in just 13 seconds at 119 pounds.

Lucas Trzecieski downed Mike Thayer in 47 seconds at 130 pounds, with Dylan Shea (152 pounds) and Dan Ognibene (285) also recording pin fall victories.

You can see complete results from the match here.

 The first Genesee Region League wrestling match of the season took place on Monday as Kendall downed Alexander 51-27.

The quickest victory of the match took place at 112 pounds as Kendall's Gabe Sobiersky pinned Kyle Shea in 1:49. Complete results of the match can be found here.

 Byron-Bergen grad Mike McInally won all four of his matches at the 2008 Oneonta Red Dragon Invitation this weekend and because of that was named the Empire Conference Wrestler of the Week.

The RIT junior beat Niagara Community College's Jared Lemke in the finals, 6-1, to capture the tournament title.

McInally is 5-0 now on the season and has a career record of 73-17.

His RIT wrestling squad will be hosting the RIT Invitational this weekend. A full day of wrestling starts at 9:30 a.m. at Clark Gym at RIT.

 The fall season has been coming to a close in recent weeks, and many of our local teams did very well. Le Roy footbal is, of course, still going and will be playing in the Far West Regionals on Saturday.

Starting next week, we will be featuring previews of some area squads and am hoping to give tons of quality, in-depth coverage of our winter teams.

The first thing I want to post in is the preseason state wrestling rankings. Thanks to a tip (please feel free to email me at brian (at) thebatavian (dot) com), I see that we have some local wrestlers that are ranked high in the state in the preseason poll.

Warsaw's Ian Paddock is the top-ranked wrestler at 130 pounds and teammate Zac Griffith is third at 171 pounds.

Holley's Quenton Murphy is second-ranked at 112 pounds and Letchworth's Mike Nevinger is top-ranked at 140.

Batavia's Ryan Darch is the No. 5 seeded grappler at 160 pounds.

We are always looking for tips, story ideas and blog contributions. Please send me an email any time, or register and share stories of what happens with your teams during the season.