Sports
WI Wrestling Gets All Around Effort, Dominates Cetereach 72-3
Lions win 14 of 15 matches over Centereach to open league play.
The West Islip varsity wrestling team had an all around team effort to open up league play and was able to crush Centereach, 72-3, at home on Wednesday night.
Nick Morillo opened the action for the Lions by pinning Alex Tolbert at 152 pounds, and after they suffered a loss at 160, the Lions never looked back and won the next 13 matches en route to a dominant victory.
“I think our kids are moving in the right direction,” head coach Nick LaGiglia said. “This is the first time we’ve been healthy and had our full lineup together. We got Steven Coppola back who is our best wrestler and has been out a year and a half. Unfortunately he had a forfeit tonight but to have him back in the lineup meant a lot to the kids and they wrestled really well.”
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A team that is usually carried by its lightweights saw pins from Brendan Smith and Mike Bilello at 215 and 285 respectively in a top to bottom effort. Pat Ryan got another victory at 171 and Dylan Colquhoun also came away with a minor decision at 189 pounds.
“The last two years our heavyweights kind of held us down a bit,” LaGiglia said. “We talked about that, even last year when we were winning a few matches we really had to carry the load with our lightweights and that got to the heavyweights, really lit a fire under them and made them work hard in the room. They were tired of being carried by the lightweights.”
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Along with the solid wins at heavyweight, the lightweights impressed as usual with pins at 96 by Travis Isgro, 103 by Drew Forcino, 112 by Tyler Walsh and 119 by Nick Gennaro. The win gets the Lions off to a 1-0 start in league play.
“It was our first league match and I told the kids the tournaments don’t mean anything, the league season, this is when the season starts,” LaGiglia said. “We have seven wins to go and we’re going to try to get them all. The first win is huge. We’re doing the right things now and are on track.”
West Islip continues League III action on Friday, Jan. 7 at 6:30p.m. against Newfield.
“We need consistency,” LaGiglia said. “We can’t go out and have our lightweights wrestle well but give up pins with our heavyweights. This is the first time we really wrestled well as a team, and if we really wrestle hard all the time we can be a force to be reckoned with, but we have to be consistent.”
