Kennedy Wrestling Claims Conference Title With Win Over Garden City

The Kennedy Cougars wrestling team captured the Conference 2B championship with a 47-26 win over the Garden City Trojans on the road on Wednesday night. The Cougars finished their regular season with an unblemished league record and 18-3 overall in dual meets.

With the match starting at 152 pounds, it may have favored Kennedy with the opportunity to get out to an early lead with a clear advantage in many of the middle and heavyweight classes.

Matt Schmelzinger gave Garden City the early lead with a technical fall over Mike Esposito. However, Kennedy came back strong to win the next three matches, including pins by John Luxmore at 160 pounds and Evan Goldschlag at 171 pounds. John Silverman won by major decision over Robbie Le Sueur at 189 pounds to give the Cougars a 16-5 lead.

After Tom Ferro picked up a minor decision win at 215 pounds for Garden City and Robert Person pinned J.P. Moran in the first period for Kennedy, the Trojans began to pick up major ground with their lightweights.

Tom Reina (103 pounds), Jack Reina (112 pounds) and Mike Lofrese (119 pounds) all picked up wins over their opponents to bring the team score to 28-23. At 125 pounds, Frank Bello was leading 5-0 against Kennedy’s Richie Luxmore, but the tides took a turn when Luxmore caught Bello in a cradle to pick up a big second-period pin.

Matt Eulau defeated Conner Zalud at 130 pounds to keep Garden City alive, but Bobby Krug pinned Aleksey Rizzo at 135 pounds with one second remaining in the opening period to win and clinch the championship for the Cougars. Tyler Goldberg (140 pounds) and Mike Pizzarusso (145 pounds) padded the lead with major and minor decision wins, respectively.

Heroes: A number of wrestlers came up big for Kennedy against Garden City, namely Krug who pinned Rizzo just before the first period buzzer sounded.

“I was in control of the match and to get the stick in the first period was big,” Krug said. “It is great to be conference champions and to be able to close it out for the team. We have to wrestle like this in the Dual Meet Championship and we can go really far.”

The pins by Richie Luxmore at 125 pounds and Evan Goldschlag at 171 pounds also proved to be critical wins for the Cougars.

Turning Point: Although Kennedy jumped out to a commanding 28-8 lead after seven weight classes, Garden City fought back strong with their lightweights. Luxmore fell into trouble in the first period against Eulau, but fought back to pin him in 3:19. Although it did not mathematically eliminate Garden City’s chances, the momentum drastically swung back towards the Kennedy sideline.

Quotable: “Every time we wrestle Garden City it is a great match,” Kennedy head coach Brian DeGaetano said. “They’ve got tough kids that are well-conditioned. We just won in the scramble situations, especially at 125 pounds and 171 pounds. Every guy that we were hoping to do their job did their job and some did even better.”

“We had a bunch of matches where I thought we did a very good job, especially our lightweights,” Garden City head coach Reid Sclafani said. “They have guys that are very quality kids in those classes, and to beat them in each one was a really good performance. But the match overall, we really just lost some close ones.”

Bottom Line: Kennedy picked up their extra points when they needed it most. Arguably their toughest opponent of the year thus far, the Cougars took advantage of the quick start in winning five out of the first seven weight classes en route to the conference title.

Key Stat: Where points were hard to come by, both teams had to jump at the opportunity to go for the pins rather than decisions. Kennedy edged out Garden City in that element, 5-2.

Who’s Next: Kennedy @ Seaford, Jan. 21, 7 p.m. (Grand Avenue Middle School); Garden City @ North Shore, Jan 21. 5 p.m.

Box Score: