Mount Greylock Wrestlers Edge Monument Mountain
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The Mount Greylock wrestling team earned a must-win, three-point victory over Monument Mountain that came down to an overtime match at 220 pounds.
But while Mounties coach Ray Miro will surely take the 39-36 win, he was not jumping for joy about what he saw from his team.
"I think we can do better than we're doing right now," Miro said. "It just means collectively everyone has to step up.
"There's only so much you can do, and hopefully we can start doing a little better. We have to be a little more aggressive in practice. There were a couple of weight classes where I thought we just showed no toughness whatsoever. And wrestling is a tough sport."
Hunter Abriel beat Bart Christiano, 6-5, in three overtimes to get the Mounties within three points heading into the 285-pound weight class, where Monument took a forfeit to surrender its 36-33 advantage and give the Mounties a win they badly needed to keep pace in the Berkshire County league.
Last week, Taconic beat Mount Greylock by three points. On Wednesday night, Taconic topped Mount Everett to go to 2-0 in the four-team league. The Mounties improved to 1-1 in the county.
"I told the kids, if we don't win this one, we're out of the league," Miro said.
Early on, the Mounties looked to be in danger of being out of the match when Max Buffoni and Eli Jones each won by fall to put the Spartans (1-1) up, 12-0.
Robert Sutter got the Mounties on the board with a first-period pin, but Monument Mountain extended its lead back to 12 with decisions by Dorian Page and Alex Leonard.
Then Monument gave those points back with its first forfeit, but went ahead 24-12 with a pin by Nate Cormier.
Cayman Mead and Devin Pelletier earned back-to-back pins for Mount Greylock to tie the match, but Sean Schaeffer and Steve Wool got pins at 170 and 182 to give the Spartans a 36-24 lead.
At 195, Alex Griffis battled his way to a third-period pin to get Mount Greylock within six, setting the stage for Abriel's decision at 220.
It's the third time in three duals against Monument that a late win by Abriel was the difference, Miro said. But typical of the state of the Mounties, Abriel was capable of doing better.
"He's strong," Miro said. "He can be explosive. He's just not wrestling with explosiveness right now.
"Obviously, the kid from Monument was a good athlete, but Hunter has a lot of experience. He should be taking advantage of certain situations, and he's not. And he's not the only one. It just so happens that matches come down to that [weight class], and those are the ones people remember."
Monument first-year head coach Simon Jones said that overall he was happy with his team's performance, including Christiano.
"He as bumped from 195 to 220 to wrestle that kid," Jones said. "He went to overtime. I thought he wrestled really hard. You can't get much closer than that, rideouts in overtime.
"I thought everyone wrestled well. We left a few points on the board because we weren't aggressive in the lower weights, but that would be my only criticism."