Young Taconic Wrestlers Continue Team's Winning Ways
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The Taconic wrestling team winning its dual meet opener is hardly new.
But there is plenty new around this year’s edition of a program that won a Division 3 state title in 2019 and placed third in the state a year later.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys out there,” Taconic coach Jeremy Tetreault said after a 60-21 win over Mount Greylock. “You saw a lot of freshmen and sophomores, first-year kids with a couple of weeks of wrestling under their belts.
“And they’re coming along good. We’ve got a lot of coaches in the room helping out. Everybody is sloppy after two years. Last year, you can’t really count that.”
Taconic was the only Berkshire County squad to compete at all in a very compressed winter 2021 schedule. It did reach the Western Mass dual meet final, where it dropped a 36-24 decision to Hampshire Regional.
Taconic returned to the mats in earnest last weekend with a fourth-place showing at the Bears Invitational in Athol. Thursday marked their first appearance on the Berkshire County mats since the 2020 Division 3 Western Mass Championships.
Tetreault’s squad earned pins in five of the nine contested matches.
West Dews (113 pounds), Owen Brennan (132), Clayton Cowdrey (138), Noah Poirier (152) and Broc Healey (160) each earned a pin.
The Mounties started the match with a second-period, come-from-behind pin from Emery Rutter at 106 and got pins from Quinn Whaley (145) and Jake Mucci (195). The Mounties’ Aiden Macpherson won the only decision of the night, outpointing Ben West, 9-5, at 182 pounds.
Considering the fact that the Mounties did not have a wrestler place higher than fifth at the 2020 sectional, their return to action against a perennial power showed a good deal of promise for coach John Carvalho.
“I think we can compete well this year compared to two years ago,” Carvalho said. “We’re going to be able to compete once we get the rust off. The last year was difficult for the kids. They were sitting home, some of them gained more weight than we thought.
“But they're ready to compete. They’re excited. They were actually messaging me a month and a half before the season started saying, ‘Are we going this year?’ They were ready. And tonight showed they were ready. We’ve just got a little more work today. Get the kinks out, and we’ll be ready.”
Carvalho said he has a few wrestlers nearly ready to go who will help fill out the weight classes that Mount Greylock forfeited, possibly as soon as their next action in the Dec. 27 Berkshire Holiday Tournament at Monument Mountain.
Taconic has some work to do before then when it travels to the Wayland Tournament this weekend.
Tetreault, who sat some of his big guns for Thursday’s dual meet opener, was pleased with the team’s outcome in its first tourney of the season five days before.
“I figured we’d stay right in third place, which we were there right until the end,” he said. “Monty Tech ended up squeaking by a couple of points to beat us for third. We lost our finals matches, and they won theirs.
“We got beat by three Division 2 teams, and we beat all the other Division 3 teams, so I was happy. For beginners who had never wrestled before and never saw a tournament in their lives to do that, that was good. This is all just trying to work out the kinks and see where we are. Hopefully, by our tournament on Jan. 15, we’ll get a picture of what’s really going to happen.”
Taconic 60, Mount Greylock 21
106 pounds: Emery Rutter (MG) pinned Jason Mathes (T), 2:17.
113 pounds: West Dews (T) pinned Ricky Pese (MG), :51.
120 pounds: Levi Machaffie (T) won by forfeit.
126 pounds: Hunter Christman (T) won by forfeit.
132 pounds: Owen Brennan (T) pinned Seth Blanchard (MG), :52.
138 pounds: Clayton Cowdrey (T) pinned Francesco Zanolo (MG), 2:59.
145 pounds: Quinn Whaley (MG) pinned Logan Soule (T), 2:37.
152 pounds: Noah Poirier (T) pinned Isaiah Mejias, 1:21.
160 pounds: Broc Healey (T) pinned Aaron Bush, 1:16.
170 pounds: Joe Lafreniere (T) won by forfeit.
182 pounds: Aiden Macpherson (MG) def. Ben West (T), 9-5.
195 pounds: Jake Mucci (MG) pinned Jake Hall (T), :38.
220 pounds: Ethan Nicholls (T) won by forfeit.
285 pounds: Keishon Martin (T) won by forfeit.