John Jay Wrestling Continues its Great Season

After an impressive year that saw John Jay win the Section 1 Team Championship, the Shoreline and Beacon tournaments and the league title, the wrestling team continued its streak into the postseason.

At the Division I meet at Sleepy Hollow, the Indians led the section with six champions.

Though teams were randomly assigned to each of the four divisionals, John Jay found itself in arguably the toughest one, with fellow Top 10 teams New Rochelle, Brewster and Sleepy Hollow. Still, the Indians managed to go 6-1 in finals.

Mark Swertfager won Most Outstanding Wrestler honors, beating Ricardo Lopez of Brewster 3-2 in a highly anticipated match at 135 pounds between two of the best in the section.

Facing the second-ranked wrestler in the section at 215 pounds, heavyweight Lucas Meyer pinned Eliot Maldonado of Yonkers in the second period, while Donnie Gecaj beat the top-ranked 189-pounder in the section, Joe Rodriguez of Port Chester, 7-0 in the final.

In another great battle at 285 pounds, Timmy Gecaj beat Malcolm Allen 2-1 in the final for his third win over the Huguenots' heavyweight this season.

Billy Watterson (119 pounds) and Scott Genovesi (160) also won championships, while James Kelly (125) finishing second.

There were also some first-time qualifiers for the sectional tournament, including Wyatt Gilchrist (171) and David Egeler (125), who was the only wrestler from John Jay at last year's divisionals who didn't make it to the next weekend.

"I reminded him of that right before he went out for the qualifying match," coach Bill Swertfager said. "I said, 'Do you want to be the only one to not qualify again? Then go out there and do it.'"

John Jay has now sent 44 wrestlers to sectionals the past three years, but the one title that has eluded them is the Section 1 Open team championship. The Indians have lost by a small margin to rival Fox Lane in each of the past two years. This year Arlington and North Rockland should also be in the mix for the title.

"There are four really tough teams," Swertfager said. "They all qualified a lot of kids, all have high rankings. This is the one that has eluded us for a few years here, but at this tournament it's really about the individuals and not the team. We want the kids focused on themselves."

Only the sectional champion is guaranteed a spot in the state tournament. John Jay grabbed eight top 3 seeds in Monday night's seeding meeting, including No. 1 seeds for Watterson, Swertfager, Donnie Gecaj and Genovesi. Meyer will be a No. 2 seed and Timmy Gecaj, Henry Stauber and Kelly are seeded third.

"To be seeded in the top three in more than half the weight classes is good," Swertfager said. "Now we have to wrestle to it. If that's the way it ends up, that would be awesome."

Stauber is the only returning state qualifier for the Indians, who had four runner-ups at sectionals last year.

"A lot of it is how kids react under pressure," Swertfager said. "All year round you hear about kids from different schools, and now they're all coming together, and the cream will rise to the top."