Monument Mountain Second at Western Mass Meet
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – After placing no higher than 10th in its two January invitationals, the Monument Mountain wrestling team Saturday took a big step up.
Capped by Sam St. Peter’s come-from-behind win in the final bout of the day to win the 285 crown, the Spartans placed second at the Western Massachusetts Division 3 Championships at Mount Greylock.
It was a day when all four Berkshire County squads had something to celebrate.
The host Mounties got three individual titles from Jacob Borawski, Jayquan Vazquez and Logan O’Connell on the way to a fourth-place finish. Mount Everett took home gold medals for Connor Lupiani and Diego Cruz, who was named the meet’s outstanding wrestler. And Taconic’s West Dews placed first to give the county seven titles in 14 weight classes.
The biggest prize of the day went to Monument Mountain, which moved up one spot from its third-place finish a year ago and finished just three points behind sectional champion Franklin Tech.
“I don’t know if ‘expecting’ is the right word, but I knew we had it in us,” Monument Mountain coach Simon Jones said. “This team, from top to bottom, every single athlete over performed or performed to their potential, and it’s been an amazing day for us.
“Through the season, there are ups and downs, and we have kids out and kids in. We finally put it together at the end. These kids did an amazing job. I couldn’t be happier.”
One of the wrestlers who was out for the Spartans for a time this season was St. Peter, who was on the sidelines when Monument Mountain made the trip to North County for the Mountie Invitational back on Jan. 25.
“It’s been a grind, day in and day out working hard in the room,” St. Peter said after defending his 2024 sectional title. “I didn’t wrestle as well as I thought I could have today. I thought I got gassed quicker than I usually do.
“I had a little left in the tank for that one.”
St. Peter trailed, 7-2, going into the third period against Dillon Laffond of Franklin Tech but rallied for an 11-9 win that told his coach that the senior heavyweight has all the conditioning he needs.
“It might have been one of the better conditioned matches I’ve seen,” Jones said. “To come back at that weight, to move that much weight around and be down by seven points in the third period is a hard job. And he did an amazing job. I couldn’t be happier for him.”
The Spartans had plenty to be happy about with three other wrestlers – Christopher St. Peter, Dominic Dignard and Isaac Hartshorn – in the finals and Kamren Boino (150 pounds) and Shaun Frank (190) placing third in their divisions. In all, 10 of 12 Monument Mountain wrestlers in action on Saturday walked out of Mount Greylock with a medal.
“It’s awesome,” Sam St. Peter said. “The young guys, you know, Chris [St. Peter] and Mason [St. Peter, fourth at 113]. There are seventh-graders making the finals and qualifying for states. We have a bunch of young guys – Sam Dignard [fourth at 138], Isaac, all of our guys – everyone wrestled great.
“It was a team effort.”
Mount Everett senior Cruz, who won the 106-pound title the last three years, won at 113 pounds on Saturday with three straight pins, the shortest in the title bout against Hampden Charter’s Aakaria Alsmail, who Cruz stopped in just 13 seconds.
Cruz’s teammate, Lupiani, had an 11-second pin in the quarter-finals and finished all three of his bouts in the first period. He pinned Duggan Academy’s Matthew Lemay midway through the first round of their bout.
Taconic senior Dews had to take the mat four times in the 144-pound weight class. He pinned his first three opponents before going the distance against Hamsphire Regional’s Adin Clifford for a 20-13 win. As a team, Taconic collected five medals. Two of Dews’ teammates also ended their days with wins: Aiden Reyes in the fifth-place bout at 165 and Malikai Lytle for fifth place at 190.
Mount Greylock collected nine medals in its home gym.
Aiden Maroney (106) and Cash Kolodziej (113) finished the day with a smile after winning their matches for fifth-place finishes.
The three first-place finishes by Borawski (175), Vazquez (190) and O’Connell (215) gave Mount Greylock the most gold medals of any team in the 14-team field.
The three Hoosac Valley High School juniors on the Mount Greylock coop team won on back-to-back-to-back pins to fire up the home crowd and anchor the Mounties to a fourth-place showing.
“Those two are my brothers, in every sense of the word,” O’Connell said. “We are up before school grinding in the gym with each other. We’ll go to a teammate’s house that has a mat. We’ll drill with each other an hour or two hours together before school. We come after school to practice, putting in the hard work, the three of us drilling together.
“It means everything that the three of us finally made it there together.”
Team Scores
1. Franklin Tech, 188 points; 2. Monument Mountain, 185; 3. Hampden Charter, 179.5; 4. Mount Greylock, 172; 5. Southwick Tolland, 136; 6. John J. Duggan, 127; 7. Hampshire, 112; 8. Mount Everett, 99.5; 9. Springfield International Charter School, 96; 10. Taconic, 73.5; 11. Frontier, 71; 12. Belchertown, 60; 13. Mohawk Trail, 51.5; 14. Gateway, 7.
Title Bouts
106 - Lucas Laviolette, Duggan, def. Christopher St. Peter, Monument Mountain, 14-8.
113 - Diego Cruz, Mount Everett, pinned Zakaria Alsmail, Hampden Charter, :13.
120 - Carsten Couture, Franklin Tech, pinnedJayden Perrier, Southwick, 1:16.
126 - Alexander Rodriquez, SICS, pinned Amadi Ezeugwu, Southwick, 3:14.
132 - Landon Purington, Franklin Tech, def. Bryan Hall, Duggan, 3-0.
138 - Connor Lupiani, Mount Everett, pinned Matthew Lemay, Duggan, 1:04.
144 - West Dews, Taconic, def. Adin Clifford, Hampshire, 20-13.
150 - Ezekiel Cherival, Hampden Charter, def. Jackson Bisson, Southwick, 4-0.
157 - Logan Moore, Mohawk Trail, def. Ian Lanoue, Mount Everett, 8-4.
165 - Maximus Soto, Duggan, pinned Dominic Dignard, Monument Mountain, 2:36.
175 - Jacob Borawski, Mount Greylock, pinned Isaac Hartshorn, Monument Mountain, :15.
190 - Jayquan Vazquez, Mount Greylock, pinned Collin Eddy, Franklin Tech, 1:42.
215 - Logan O’Connell, Mount Greylock, pinned Jackson Morey, Franklin Tech, 3:00.
285 - Sam St. Peter, Monument Mountain, def. Dillon Lafford, Franklin Tech, 11-9.