Five From County in Wrestling Semis
WAKEFIELD -- Four Berkshire County wrestlers are through to the championship semifinals at the Massachusetts Division 3 Individual State Tournament at Wakefield High School.
Taconic's Travis Kuni (160 pounds) and Tajaye Davis (285), Mount Everett's Bradley Lupiani (113), Monument Mountain's Jonah Christianson (220) and Mount Greylock's Ross Jackson (182) each have a chance to bring home a state crown on the second day of the meet Wednesday at Wakefield High School.
On Tuesday, Jackson cruised through the first two rounds of the competition with pins of Melrose's Zeke Vainer (1 minute, 3 seconds) and Wayland's Kevin Kelley (4:00). Today, he faces Hingham's John Kay, who also advanced on a pair of pins.
Three of the other seven Mounties at the state meet remain alive in the consolation bracket of their weight classes.
Travis Hilchey at 126 pinned his first opponent in the wrestlebacks and then won a 5-4 decision to stay alive. At 145, Mitchell Graves got a pair of pins after losing a 14-7 decision in the first round of the main draw.
At 170, Johnny Colon won his first match in the main draw on a pin but then lost a 10-6 decision to go to the wrestlebacks. He bounced back with a narrow 6-4 decision to preserve his hopes for a top-six finish.
Kuni defeated Wayland's Chris Oyola, 9-2, in the prelims and pinned hometown hero John Hopkins of Wakefield at 3:05 of their quarterfinal match. Kuni will meet Tyngsboro's Alec Golner in the semis.
Davis got a quick pin of Minuteman's John Kelly in his first match of the day and earned a technical fall against Norton's Stephen Hudson. Next for Davis is Pembroke's Kevin Beane.
Lupiani blanked Cohasset's Harry Helbock, 4-0, and pinned Wayland's Cole Elias at 3:09 to set up a semifinal today against Danvers' Chris Davis.
Christianson pinned competitors from Melrose and Pembroke to reach Wednesday's semifinal against Tom Arsenault of Lynnfield-North Reading.
Norton leads the team competition with 56 points, but Pembroke at 55 points with one more wrestler in the championship semifinals is right behind. Mount Greylock is in 15th place out of 53 teams with 30.5 points.