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Sports

Sachem North Downs Whitman Wrestling

Four pins by North contribute to convincing win.

Sachem North wrestling kept on rolling Friday night to make it two convincing wins in a row as they beat Walt Whitman, 52-16, at Walt Whitman High School.  Meanwhile, Whitman falls to 1-2 in League II and garnered their lowest point total of the season despite a few impressive individual performances.  North won 10 of the matches they wrestled in, including four via pin as they move their record to 3-0 in League II.

 The Heroes: For North, Gio Santiago grinded through a tough match against Whitman’s Jon Russell.  Russell led through a round and a half, but Santiago came through with a takedown to take the lead in the second and slowly wore down Russell to take the win.

Sean O’Hagan (103), Frank Napoli (119), Rich Avella (145), Vin Fragale (160) all earned their win via pin for Sachem.

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For Whitman, Joe Calderone had the match of the night as usual for his team.  He pinned North’s Matt Stallone in the 96-pound match-up in the second round.  Stallone is no pushover either, winning a convincing match earlier this week against Lindenhurst, but Calderone continued to show why he is one of the highest ranked wrestlers on Long Island at 96 pounds.

Mike Milanese also had a nice match for Whitman as he defeated a tough Frank Blais 10-1 to earn his team four points, and Chris Aguilar pinned North’s James Schreck in the third round of a back and forth match.

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The Turning Point: Perhaps the match of the night was Whitman’s Kyle O’Rourke versus North’s Dave Johnson.  Johnson took a fairly commanding lead early and seemed to be in control, but O’Rourke began to pull of a gritty comeback in the third round, closing the match down 8-5 after at one point being down 8-1.

Quotable: “We’re starting to believe that we’re a good team,” North head coach Ray Pickersgill said. “The guys didn’t come out flat and they pretty much did what they needed to do here. They knew Whitman wasn’t going to be one of the tougher teams they faced this year but they avoided a let down. They went out and they wrestled really hard and I’m really proud of them. Even the guys that lost, especially Frank Blais, gave everything they had.  Frank wrestled Milanese a month ago and got teched, and he almost had him on his back there at the end.  All around I feel like this was a good win for us.”

“Our guys went out there and they wrestled tough,” Whitman head coach Vincent Altebrando said. “They got some take downs and were in positions that we wanted them to be. You’re going to wrestle guys that are better than you, but we wrestled. I wasn’t worried about the score.  In a couple of spots we got caught, but other than that I thought we wrestled better. Calderone did well, Milanese, and Aguilar.  Other guys did things that we’re looking to improve on. O’Rourke had a great match to come back at the end there. We’re right where we want to be to improve, if not this year, then next year.”

The Bottom Line: North continues to roll with impressive victories within the league.  They can solidify a top seed if they can win their next two league meets and seem to have the talent and depth to make a run this season.  Meanwhile, Whitman is trying to put together a couple victories before their season ends.  They’ll get back their 285-pound star Kameran Turner who was out with an ankle injury for their next meet.

Key Stat: Napoli and Fragale both pinned their opponents in 29 seconds for North.

Who’s Next?: Sachem will host an individual tournament on Saturday starting at 8:30 a.m., they’ll then host Central Islip on Wednesday at 6 p.m. where they’ll also have their alumni night and dedicate the gym to former coach Jack Mahoney, who is second all time on in section XI dual meet wins with 341.

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