Sports

Arrows Dominate, then Stumble Against Nassau Powerhouse

Sachem still strong, but finds areas to improve on in early-season meet.

There are times during the season that every team is tested. Sachem North entered the David Bloom Memorial Duals at Wantagh on Saturday knowing that this would be such a test. 

"We booked this last year knowing we would be a good squad, we wanted to know how good," said Sachem coach Ray Pickersgill. "I saw some good things today, some real good things, but I can't say I'm satisfied, and hopefully my guys aren't either."

First the good, Sachem easily dispatched New Rochelle (Section 1), 59-12, Hewlett, 56-28, and perennial Nassau County powerhouse Long Beach, 43-25, in the first three matches on Saturday.

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Then the Arrows ran into a great team dropping a 56-15 decision to New York state top ranked Wantagh.

"We ran into a little bit of a brick wall there," Pickersgill said. "Those boys are battle tested, and we haven't hit our stride yet. I didn't think we would falter that bad."

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With Longwood losing to Long Beach in the Bruins Cup last weekend, and Wantagh beating top Rranked Shenendehowa, the No. 1 ranking was there in the state for the taking, and Wantagh ran with it. 

"There's no shame in losing to a team like that, I just wish we would have competed a little better, perhaps, the butterflies got to us a little bit," added Pickersgill. 

Not lost in all this was the continual tough wrestling of some of the Arrows grapplers.  At 120 pounds, returning All-County wrestler Sean O'Hagan came out on the losing end of a 14-12 barn burner with Long Beach's Mark Raghunandan.  It appeared that O'Hagan had a takedown at the buzzer and maybe a set of back points, but it was waved off when the referee determined it came after the buzzer. 

"Sean competes every time out," said Pickersgill. "He was down 9-2 and battled back and should have won. He clearly had a takedown, but there's no arguing something like that."

O'Hagan won his second match dominating Wantagh's Blaise Kavanaugh from the opening whistle and secured a pin at 5:40 of the match. 

Another standout was Gio Santiago who won all three of his matches including a dominating 11-5 win over top ranked Alex Weddell of Wantagh. 

At 145 pounds junior Mike Falcon probably had the best day however.  He recorded 3 pins and was winning his match 5-4 against Wantagh but got taken down to his back and lost with just seconds left. 

"Mike might be our most improved wrestler, he works so hard, he is always the last one to leave practice, and that hard work is showing on the mat," said Pickersgill.

"Being the son of Sachem's only two-time state champion must be a tremendous amount of pressure," said Sachem assistant coach John Aebly, "but you would never know with Mike, he just goes about his business every day, he's really a model athlete."

Steven Mills and Anthony Confessore continued their fantastic seasons going 3-1 each, both with great victories; Mills beating Hewlett's Matt Kaminer by pin at 0:45 of the first and Confessore with a 2-0 decision over Long Beach's Lou Bosco.

"The heavyweights we have are our strong points," Aebly said. "They all work hard and work together to make us better, this is the best group we've had here in a long time."

Anthony Marino also had a great day going 3-1 at 170 pounds, improving his season record to 6-2 on the season.

It doesn't get any easier from here, as Sachem will travel to Smithtown West to take on the host school and Connetquot on Friday at 6:30 p.m. in a tri meet.  Connetquot defeated Sachem, 49-20, last year.

"Another week, another test," said Pickersgill. "This would be a nice early Christmas present. We aren't looking to duck anyone and being in League I offers us no breaks. We can rest in March."


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