Long Island Wrestling Association

Red Dragon Wrestling Invitational
at Oneonta State, November 22
Oneonta, N.Y.

ONEONTA STATE WINS OWN TOURNAMENT

Three Individuals Take Home Tirles in Leading Red Dragons to a First Place Finish

        The Oneonta State wrestling team showed some muscle today in winning its own Invitational that included 10 schools from five different conferences in the Northeast part of the country.  The Red Dragons had three indivdual champions and eight place-winners overall in accumulating 116 points, which was 6-1/2 points better than WPI who finished second with 109.5.  Wilkes University was third with 107 points.

        Junior Dustin Winn (Bainbridge, NY/BGA), who moved up to No. 4 in this week’s rankings at 157 lbs., took home the title in his weight class.  After trailing 6-5 entering the final minute of the bout, he scored a reversal to earn two points and the victory.  Junior Nick Castellano (East Meadow, NY/East Meadow) also won his championship in the final minute of action when he was able to score a two-point takedown to win 7-6.  The other individual champion for the Red Dragons was senior Otis Place (Castleton, NY/Maple Hill) at 165 lbs.  This is the second straight title for Place to open his season.

        Other place-winners for Oneonta included junior Rory Tobias (Binghamton, NY/Johnson City) who was third at 149 lbs.  Tobias got his first national ranking of the season this past week when he debuted at No. 5 in his weight class after winning his weight class at the Monarch Invitational last weekend.  Junior Sean Murphy (Bethpage, NY/Island Trees) and sophomore Joe Sanders (Bloomington, NY/Pine Bush) were fifth at 133 lbs. and 141 lbs. respectively.  Junior Billy Cooper (Walton, NY/Walton) and freshman Josh Stewart (Fairport, NY/Penfield) rounded out this group with a fourth and sixth place finish at 285 lbs.

        The Most Outstanding Wrestler of the tournament, as voted by the coaches, was sophomore Steve Hult (Hillsdale, NY/Pascack Valley) of NYU who won the title at 149 lbs.  Hult defeated Mike Ferrara (Effort, PA/Pleasant Valley) 5-3 in the championship match.

        The most falls award went to Tim Wagner (Spencer, IA/Spencer) of Johns Hopkins who finished the day with four total pins en route to a third place finish at 165 lbs.

        Complete brackets and final team standings along with the top six place-winners from each weight class can be found at www.oneonta.edu/academics/athletics/arestling/index.cfml.