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Wrestling: Marist’s strong finish nets Lincoln-Way East title
Updated: January 14, 2012 8:34PM
Harlem owned a 15.5-point advantage over Marist for top honors heading into the finals of Saturday’s Lincoln-Way East Invite.
In order to turn that deficit around, the RedHawks needed a big round in the place matches and that’s exactly what they got.
Marist won nine of its 10 matches, including seven of eight on the title mat, to capture the title 240.5-231.5 in Frankfort.
Winning titles for the RedHawks were Nick Gasbarro (106), Mark Duda (113), Matt Sears (126), Peter Andreotti (152), Alex Benoit (170), Ethan Benoit (182) and Josh Hickey (285).
“It was great to see us keep getting stronger and wrestling our best at the end of the day and that’s crucial at this time of the year,” said Marist coach Brendan Heffernan, whose team competed with only 12 wrestlers.
“We always stress to the guys to go out and have fun. If you wrestle as hard as you possibly can and also score points, that’s having fun. That’s what keeps these guys loose so they don’t put pressure on themselves.”
Harlem, which beat out Marist for the title of the 12-team meet a year ago, went 5-of-13 in the finals and had two champions.
One of the surprise champs for the RedHawks was Sears, who was 12-12 at the start of the day but beat Niles West’s Thomas Williams 11-7 in the finals for his fourth win.
In head-to-head title matches between Marist and Harlem, Duda beat Jordan Northrup 6-4 and Alex Benoit edged Sean Jones 7-6.
“We’re a little banged up but we’re all about overcoming adversity,” Ethan Benoit said. “We only had 12 guys but 10 of them placed. We’re happy with the way we’re wrestling but we know that we still need to do better.”
Also winning championships were St. Rita’s Mike O’Connor (145) and Mike Murphy (160) and Lincoln-Way East’s Kyle Langenderfer (138).
St. Rita, which beat the host Griffins 157-131 for third place, also had a pair of runners-up in Tim Corse (138) and Tyre Lee (152).
Reavis got seconds from Jesus Vasquez (106) and Eduardo Marquez (285), while Lincoln-Way West’s Will Hubbard (145) and Marist’s Tom Howell (220) also took second.
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