Four wrestlers advance to semi's

It was a fantastic showing on day one of the state wrestling championship in Rochester. There are still wrestlebacks to follow which will likely go late into the night.

But the quarterfinals are just about wrapped up and four out of six SunLand wrestlers went 2-0 today to close within two more wins of a state title. Matt Ross, Steven Keith, T.J. Neidhart and Zach Buonaiuto are all done for today and will be back early tomorrow in hopes of becoming a state champ. All are guaranteed an All-State honor by finishing in the top six.

The only wrestler to lose his first match was Ray Powers. Brandon Escobar fell in the quarterfinals to Justis Flamio, so he'll wait to wrestle the winner of Taylor Laraia and Juliano Pabon. Escobar will need to win four more matches to take third place. If he makes it to the third/fourth place match, he may meet fellow Suffolk County wrestler, Jake Benedetto of Islip. Benedetto lost to top-seeded Nick Arujau, 4-0.

I've been meaning to mention how strange it is that no Longwood wrestlers are represented here. In the semifinals we have three of our schools (RP, SWR, MP). The Lions were the best team of any of our local schools and had the highest finish in the county tournament (5th). Unfortunately that depth didn't translate into any individual honors. They Lions were without a county champion and didn't see any of their wrestlers earn an at-large bid. For as good as the Lions were, you would have thought that somehow, someway, at least one of their wrestlers would make it to the states. You'll remember they didn't have any wrestlers at the state tourney last year either.

But with a real good core of young wrestlers, I'm sure we'll see plenty of green at the upcoming state tournaments. 

When you talk about Longwood the name that comes up a lot these days is Nicky Hall, the seventh-grader who won the league and placed fifth in the county. How great would it be if he ends up in the same weight class down the road as Tim Schaefer, the seventh-grader from Lancaster who lost to Matt Ross in the semi's. (Hall wrestled at 103 this year). That could be a great matchup a few years down the road, when both of them move up into high school. It's always tough to predict how a kid's going to grow, though. It could end up by the time they're sophomores and juniors that they're a few weight classes apart.