Taconic Wrestlers Place Second at Berkshire Holiday Tournament
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Mount Everett’s Nick Lupiani had a good Berkshire Holiday Tournament on Tuesday.
But that does not mean that he had a great holiday.
“This Christmas kind of stunk for me,” Lupiani said after claiming one of the county’s five titles at the annual early-season wrestling tournament.
“I had to cut some weight. I couldn’t eat any Christmas dinners or anything. I did get a few presents, which was nice.”
Three days later, Lupiani gifted his team three pins, including a 1 minute, 40 second stop of Spaulding, Vt.’s, Caleb Huntington in the 120-pound championship match to help the Eagles place fifth out of 13 teams competing at Monument Mountain.
Spaulding ended up winning the team title with 166 points, beating out runner-up Taconic, which took first place in three weight classes and earned 148 points.
Mount Everett garnered 96 points to place fifth. Mount Greylock (83 points) placed eighth, and the host Spartans (47 points) tied for 11th place.
Personal sacrifices at the dinner table aside, Lupiani likely spoke for many of the athletes when he said he was glad to get back to the sport after a year almost entirely canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It feels great,” he said. “It sucks that I missed a year, but I came back, and I’m here now.”
Taconic is also back – a year removed from its second-place finish at the 2020 Western Massachusetts Division 3 sectional.
On Tuesday, Taconic put three wrestlers into championship finals.
A fourth, 113-pounder West Dews, went 3-0 with three pins to win a round-robin held to decide the titlist in the four-wrestler division. Mount Everett’s Max Manning went 2-1 in the round robin to claim second place in the 113 division; the difference was a second-period pin by Dews.
Taconic’s Noah Poirier earned a 9-3 decision over Spaulding’s Cameron Govea in the championship match at 152 pounds after advancing to the final with a pair of first-period pins.
At 170, Taconic’s Ben West pinned Mount Greylock’s Aaron Bush in 1:06 to claim the title. It was West’s third pin of the day.
Taconic’s other finalist was Keishon Martin at 285.
Martin advanced with first-period pins against wrestlers from Taconic Hills, N.Y., and Holyoke before dropping a 3-2 decision to Spaulding’s Colton Perkins in the final.
The other division run as a round-robin was 160 pounds, where Taconic’s Joe Lafreniere went 2-1 with a pair of pins and a 5-2 loss to place second.
In addition to Lupiani, Mount Everett got a title from Diego Cruz at 106. Cruz pinned all three of his opponents in the first round. He stopped Granby’s Nathan Benson in 1:25 in the championship match.
The Eagles’ Omar Cruz (13 pounds) and Tyler Candelari (126) each ended his day with a victory in the third-place match. Cruz won by forfeit after going 2-1 in contested matches; Candelari pinned Holyoke’s Ethan McClain in 1:28.
Two Mount Greylock wrestlers ended their days with victories.
At 182, Aiden MacPherson stopped Holyoke’s Anthony Cruz in 24 seconds to win the consolation final. At 195, Jacob Mucci earned a pin in 3:02 against Northbridge’s Zachary Vento.
One Monument Mountain wrestler advanced to a championship bout, and a second Spartan won his final match in the consies.
At 126, Ely Cormier advanced to the final with a pair of pins before he was stopped in the first period by Spaulding’s Nick Pierce.
At 170, Andrew Albert lost his first bout of the day and then won four in a row to claim third place.Along the way, Albert pinned three opponents in the first period.