Taconic Wrestlers Place Second in Western Mass
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The Taconic wrestling team knew it had something special going into this weekend's Western Massachusetts Division 3 Championships.
Now the rest of the region knows it too.
Taconic settled for a second-place finish after battling Dean Tech down to the final match of the two-day tournament at Mount Greylock Regional School.
Coach Jeremy Tetreault's team improved six spots from its 2014 finish and qualified for next weekend's state tournament at Wakefield High School.
Taconic got individual titles from Nick Bailey, Isiah Williams and Austin Houghtaling. Their teammate, Dave Jones was pinned by 2014 sectional runner-up Phillip Fernandez of Taconic at 285 pounds to provide Dean Tech's margin of victory.
"We were really confident," Houghtaling said. "If we all came out as the seeds we went into the tournament with, we would have come out on top.
"We just came out so close. But I'm not mad. Second place out of 20 teams is all right."
Taconic finished with 177 points, just seven points behind Dean Tech.
Sabis finished third. The host Mounties finished fourth with 151 points, beating out fifth-place Monument Mountain (137).
Mount Everett, which got an individual title from 132-pounder Bradley Lupiani, finished 15th out of 19 teams in the final standings.
Lupiani, who reached the finals on first period pins in the quarters and semi-finals, was pushed to the limit by Dean Tech's Chris Vega but prevailed, 8-7, to win his third sectional title.
Other individual champions from the county included Monument Mountain's Max Buffoni, Mark Leon-Duque and Robert Yvon and Mount Greylock's Devin Pelletier.
Pelletier had a nearly perfect weekend for the Mounties at 152 pounds, earning the team 29 points with three pins and a major decision. He pinned Franklin Tech's Brett Bean in the sixth minute of their championship match to improve to 53-2 this season.
Defending sectional champ Monument Mountain went three-for-three in the championship round.
Buffoni pinned Frontier's Emirhan Yildiz at 98 pounds to get the finals started. Up at the other end of the scale, Monument picked up a 3-2 decision by Mark Leon-Duque at 170 over Sabis' Kolby Smith and a pin by Robert Yvon, who stopped Belchertown's Caleb Holmes in the fifth minute at 195.
In addition to the three individual titles Taconic collected, the team picked up a third-place finish from Mason Papiro, who bowed out in the semifinals of the main draw on Saturday morning gainst eventual champ Lupiani at 132.
Team scores: 1. Dean Tech 184; 2. Taconic 177; 3. Sabis 175.5; 4. Mount Greylock, 151; 5. Monument Mountain 137; 6. Hampden Charter 121.5; 7. Hampshire Regional 106.5; 8. Granby 96; 9. Pathfinder 90.5; 10. Athol 78; 11. Frontier 70; 12. Franklin Tech 67; 13. South Hadley 62.5; 14. Southwick 57; 15. Mount Everett 56; 16. Gateway 48; 17. Smith Voc 45; 18. Mahar 43; 19. Belchertown 36.