Mount Greylock's Gill, Taconic's Powell Earn Weekly Honors

It was a busy holiday "vacation" for high school student-athletes and a successful one for this week's iBerkshires.com/Bedard Bros. Athletes of the week.

 

Taconic's Zabion Powell was one of three Berkshire County wrestlers to win an individual title at the Berkshire Holiday Open.

 

His victory at 145 pounds helped his team place second -- the top finish among county schools and only behind Division 1's Putnam.

 

Powell scored a personal victory over the Springfield school, pinning Gamar Heath to end a back-and-forth match in the championship round.

 

"They've wrestled since youth, and Garmar used to get the best of him back in the day," Taconic coach Jeremy Tetreault said. "Then he started narrowing the gap. They've been wrestling each other for a while, and Zabion came out on top today."

 

The Mount Greylock girls have been on top in the Berkshire County Nordic League for some time, and the last two years they've finished at the head of the class at the state championship meet.

 

The road to their "three-peat" began on Saturday at Prospect Mountain in Vermont, where Brandi Gill led a Mounties sweep of the top five positions.

 

Gill, who was Mounties' third finisher (12th overall) at last Februrary's state meet, edged teammate Lilliana Wells by three seconds for first place on Saturday.

 

All five Mount Greylock girls who figured in the team scoring crossed the finish line 22 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

 

The iBerkshires.com Athlete of the Week is sponsoered by Bedard Bros. Auto of Cheshire.