Seaford Wrestlers Fall Short At Gerbino Night

Seaford wrestling program alumni were there. The cameras were rolling. It was a special night for wrestling at  Saturday evening for the 17th annual Bob Gerbino Night.

Everything was perfect -- except for the outcome.

In the latest chapter in a classic rivalry between two proud wrestling programs, the Clarke Rams defeated Seaford -- outpointing the Vikings in the higher weight classes 21-3 to secure a 43-24 victory and falling to 2-2 in dual meets this season.

Despite the loss, Seaford head coach Sal LoStrappo said the 17th annual Bob Gerbino event was a special one. “It was a great night of wrestling,” said Coach LoStrappo. “Clarke came to wrestle, and they outwrestled us. It couldn’t happen to a better program -- nobody works harder at their program than Clarke.”

The evening was a commemoration of the influence of Gerbino, a man who was critical in shaping the wrestling program at Seaford for three decades and who was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2008.

And as if Coach Gerbino was up there watching, things looked to be trending Seaford’s way in the early going, with 96 pound Pat Bizarro pinning Philip Liota in the third period with a minute to go, and Matt Blasi out pointing Chris Lopez 4-2 at 103 lbs.

But a third period pin for the Rams’ Jon Hoffman, wrestling against DJ Rome at 112 pounds, erased the Viking's early lead. “We had it won, then they turned it around,” LoStrappo said.

It was a particularly galling pin for Seaford, as Rome had been leading in points 8-1 up to that point.

A quick pin at the 1:11 mark of the first period for David Barkan (119 pounds) followed by a hard fought 1-0 win for Mike Leonard at the 125 weight class put Clarke up by a substantial margin.

But in the middle weights contests, Seaford fought their way back. Dan Colantonio jumped to an early lead and held on for a 7-5 win against Kevin Jackson at 130 pounds. Donny Spurrell followed suit, manhandling Jon Arias at 136 for a 5-2 win. It was knotted at 15-15  at that point and it looked like either team could come out on top.

Through the heavyweights, the points kept dropping on one or another side of the scoreboard. Clarke’s David Amann scored a major victory over Kevin Butler at 140. Brandon Constantine nearly pinned Eric Caprio in the first period, but held on for a 5-4 win at 145.

The Viking's highlight of the day was a Ryan Harding pin at 152 pounds, putting his team close at 22-21 - for which he was named the evening MVP.

And in the 171 pound bracket, Matt Galinski gave his team two more points with a 5-1 win against Austin Peraza.

But the rest of the evening belonged to the Rams -- Karl Schmidt pinning Tyler Hertz at 189, and a dramatic Enndy Nunez pin against Billy Papadimas at 215, after trailing all the way and making a last minute move.

“My kid had the match won on points, but he went for the pin and it didn’t work out,” Coach LoStrappo said referring to the Nunez-Papadimas match. “He put himself into a bad situation for the team. I’ll never forget that.”

In the final match of the event Clarke's Muhammad Muzamma eked out a 1-0 win over Seaford's Mike Scialpi at 289 pounds.

Seaford is next in action at home against North Shore High School on Wednesday at 430 p.m.