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Golden Cougars top Hillbillies, 52-22, in league wrestling match

Fredonia’s Lucas Hoffman (top) wrestles against Falconer/Cassadaga Valley’s Paul Kelleher at 113 pounds on Wednesday night at Fredonia High School

One thing an athlete will remember for the rest of their life is the final time the take the court, mat, or pool for their high school team.

On Wednesday, the Fredonia Hillbillies wrestling team honored four seniors, despite falling to the Falconer-Cassadaga Valley Golden Cougars in CCAA Div. 1 league action, 52-22.

“I think the senior recognition is a culmination of the years of service they and their families have put into this program,” said Fredonia head coach Joe Santilli. “Wrestling is a difficult sport — there’s nothing easy about it. I’m real happy for all of our seniors.”

As for senior night, the Hillbillies knew it was going to be a tough task to overcome the wrestling mecca that is Falconer-Cassadaga Valley.

“Falconer is good top to bottom,” said Santilli about the Golden Cougars. “I’m not disappointed at all. Our guys battled tough. I thought we could have done better in a couple areas specifically in the bottom, but we’ll continue to get better the next few weeks.”

Falconer-Cassadaga Valley got the match going early with a pin from Brayden Newman at 106, and they didn’t look back from there.

Despite the final score however, Fredonia made it extremely tough for the Golden Cougars.

The first shot from Fredonia was delivered by Lucas Hoffman in the very next match at 113, while he and his opponent, Paul Kelleher, drew even 4-4 heading into the second period. From there, Hoffman chose to go down, made a nifty reversal and finished with a pin of Kelleher to send a wave of cheers through the Fredonia gymnasium.

“Lucas has been a little flat over the last few weeks,” said Santilli. “We’re trying to get him right for the last few weeks of the season. Once he got through that first minute of the match, he started wrestling like the young man we saw in December.”

As Fredonia dropped the next two matches, that set up one of the Fredonia seniors in Gio Russo at 132.

“I just go out and wrestle, honestly,” said the senior captain Russo. “The practice room is really big for me. What I do in there is what I try to put out on the mat.”

Russo dominated the match, tech-falling Falconer-Cassadaga Valley’s Hunter Teboe, 16-1.

“To be honest it hasn’t even hit me yet,” said Russo when asked about his feelings toward senior night. “We have bigger goals here. I’m thinking down the line towards states and everything else. I’m sure it’ll hit me soon, but for now I’m still taking it one match at a time.”

After Russo, it set up the match of the night at 138, against two athletes who have both wrestled at states before in Fredonia’s Dalton Gardner, and Falconer-Cassadaga Valley’s Jimmy Kramer.

After Gardner thought he had an early take down in the first period, the two entered the second period scoreless. With Gardner choosing to go down, he made the move of the match, reversing Kramer, and giving himself the 2-0 lead.

“I thought Dalton wrestled in control,” said Santilli. “He worked well from the things he been working on and he stayed in good position.”

When they entered the third period, Kramer went down, but Gardner was able to hold him there the rest of the match, giving himself the 2-0 decision.

“Kramer is wily,” mentioned Santilli when asked about Kramer. “With his long arms — he can be dangerous. The key is just staying in good position and Dalton was able to do that tonight. They’re going to see each other again, I’m quite confident in that.”

Falconer-Cassadaga Valley took control from there.

The Golden Cougars took matches at 145, 152 and picked up a forfeit at 160 to take the commanding 28-14 lead.

At 170, Fredonia got their next big win.

Ceric Kristan picked up a 7-2 decision over Falconer-Cassadaga Valley’s Jordan Dustin, bring the Fredonia team back within 28-17.

“Ceric wrestled a really nice match,” added Santilli. “He was in control for much of the match.”

At 195, the top ranked wrestler in Section VI at 182 in Falconer-Cassadaga Valley in Robbie Penhollow was able to make quick work and pin Fredonia’s Alex Christy, despite wrestling up a weight class.

Fredonia’s Jake Skinner won at 220 on a technical fall, but the Hillbillies were just outmatched by the Golden Cougars.

However, for the Fredonia seniors, they’ll remember this night.

“For Gio and Maggie [Mignoli], they’ve been captains of this team for the last three seasons,” said Santilli. “They’ve done everything right. These seniors have done everything right. That’s what we aspire our kids to come out as.”

Fredonia honored their four seniors before the match, including Russo, Mignoli, Brandon Wallace and Jamison Horch.

The Hillbillies will be back in action this weekend at the annual Section VI Duals tournament held at Lancaster High School.

“I just want us to keep going hard,” said Russo about his team. “I want my entire team to place as high as they can in the sectional tournament and then hopefully we can get a couple of guys to head out to states.”

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