East Meadow Wrestling Falls to Massapequa

The Massapequa wrestling team took down one of their toughest opponents of the year thus far in East Meadow on Friday night on the road, 42-30. The Chiefs claimed the Hammer-Mims Rivalry Trophy over the Jets, a rivalry tradition the two teams carry on each year.

Massapequa, the Conference 1A champions, won five out of the final six matches against East Meadow, the Conference 1B champions, to keep their momentum rolling towards the Dual Meets championships next week.

With the match starting at 171 pounds, the Jets jumped out to an early lead in front of their home crowd with a pin from Bobby Sendkewitz. The two teams would trade pins during the next two matches, a pin by Conner Wetzel for the Chiefs at 189 pounds and one by Andrew Danzinger for the Jets at 215 pounds.

Massapequa took their first lead of the match, 15-12, following a forfeit at 285 pounds and a 3-2 win by Pat Nash over Brandon Cohen at 96 pounds. Consecutive pins for East Meadow by Sal Valone at 103 pounds and Vinny Pannullo at 112 pounds gave their team the lead right back.

After Massapequa's Pat Miller pinned Anthony Stano at 119 pounds, Chris Dolan pulled out a tough 6-5 decision over Rob Zupo for East Meadow at 125 pounds. However, that was when the match would take a drastic turn in the wrong direction for East Meadow.

Massapequa’s Justin Paradiso won by technical fall over Nick Marinello at 130 pounds, followed by a major decision win for Rudy Lanzillotta over Phil Correale at 135 pounds. Nick Chicoine pinned Chris Santos in just over a minute at 140 pounds to give Massapequa a 36-27 lead.

Nolan Travis won in a close 5-4 decision against Andrew Chicoine at 145 pounds to pull East Meadow back to within six points. Chris Sarro at 152 pounds and Andrew Hoffman at 160 pounds wrapped up the night for Massapequa with minor decision wins en route to their overall team victory.

Heroes: Sarro clinced the match for Massapequa with his tough 3-0 decision over Evan Pantofel at 152 pounds. Sarro used an escape early in the second period to initially take the lead in the hard fought match up between two Nassau County title contenders.

Turning Point: When Paradiso won by technical over Marinello, it spurned a 21-3 team run for Massapequa to close out the non-league match.

Quotable: “It is a great rivalry. They wrestled tough in every individual match. We just came out on top and it was fun,” Massapequa head coach Joe Cattalanotto said. “We’re ready to make a run in the dual meets. There are definitely a few things we need to work on and I think we could tune up some stuff with the time and hopefully repeat.”

“It was as good as we could wrestle, but we are missing a lot of with five guys out of our starting lineup,” East Meadow head coach Chris Critchley said. “We battled hard and I am proud of the close score, but it definitely could have gone a different way.”

Bottom Line: Massapequa has been one of the most dominating teams on Long Island so far this season, but they will be put to the test this weekend at the East Islip Duals, namely against John Glenn, one of the toughest wrestling programs in New York State.

East Meadow will also be tested against Long Beach, the Nassau County Conference 2A champions, amongst four other schools this weekend in their home tournament, the Jet Duals.

Key Stat: Massapequa took nine of the 15 weight classes, but managed just three pins compared the East Meadow’s four.

Who’s Next: Massapequa @ East Islip Duals, Jan. 22, 9 a.m.; East Meadow @ Jet Duals, Jan. 22, 9 a.m. (East Meadow H.S.)

96- Nash (M) d. Cohen (EM)- 3-2

103- Valone (EM) p. Morgan (M)- 1:15

112- Pannullo (EM) p. Donahue (M)- 5:00

119- Miller (M) p. Stano (EM)- 5:00

125- Dolan (EM) d. Zupo (M)- 6-5

130- Paradiso (M) tf. Marinello (EM)- 17-2 (3:33)

135- Lanzillotta (M) md. Correale (EM)- 12-0

140- N. Chicoine (M) p. Santos (EM)- 1:07

145- Travis (EM) d. A. Chicoine (M)- 5-4

152- Sarro (M) d. Pantofel (EM)- 3-0

160- Hoffman (M) d. Bova (EM)- 4-2

171- Sendkewitz (EM) p. Smith (M)- 1:45

189- Wetzel (M) p. Parisi (EM)- 2:54

215- Danzinger (EM) p. Jaupaj (M)- 1:10

285- Gungor (M) by forfeit

Final: Massapequa- 42   East Meadow- 30