NORTH ATTLEBORO, Mass. – When North Attleboro and Oliver Ames (3-8) met two weeks ago in their regular season dual meet, the Rocketeers were able to pull out a nine-point win. With five pins in the first seven matches of Friday night’s Div. 2 South opener at the Pickering Gym, North made sure the playoff matchup had far less drama.
The Rocketeers had six pins as a team and rolled to a 50-18 victory to reach the sectional semifinal of the first spring wrestling team tournament.
“I was really happy with the kids’ effort, especially this being the last week of school,” said North coach Geoff Burgess. “No one wants to be in school, no one wants to be at wrestling practice, and they’re hanging tough. We’ve decided to make a run at the sectional and I think we’ve got a pretty good chance. We’re a pretty solid team top to bottom.”
OA coach John McKeon saw the loss as a good learning experience for his team, which is graduating only one senior (as well as a few athletes who played different sports during the spring season).
He explained, “We’re a little beat up. A long season got to us a little bit and we’re a young team and I think we’re looking at the summer a little bit. The kids are still wrestling tough, we’re still working hard in the room. I think it’s closer than the score says. There are some kids who got a little bit of a lesson today too.”
The dual meet started at 132 pounds and North got off to a perfect start with Kyle Dumke earning a second round pin and a quick 6-0 lead. Andrew Faris started quick at 138, building a 7-2 lead after two periods and the 14-4 win earned another four points for the hosts. North broke the meet open with a forfeit win for Ethan Smith at 145 and a first round pin by Chris Galligan at 152 creating a 22-0 lead.
Giovany Juste got the Tigers on the board when he earned a second round pin at 160, but the Rocketeers answered right back. Joe Shephard wasted little time earning a pin in just 42 seconds at 170 and then Greg Berthiaume picked up an important first round pin at 182.
“Greg got pinned by that kid last time,” Burgess said. “He flipped that, so that was a 12-point swing. We swung a couple of big matches for big points. We improved just enough since the last time we saw them to make the matches we lost either closer or flip the matches.”
The match at 195 was one of the closest of the meet. Onye Nwadiugwu had an escape and a takedown to grab a 3-0 lead on Austin Dean in the second round. In the third, Dean managed to escape for his first point of the match and, with the clock winding down, the North wrestler nearly pulled off a takedown to force overtime, but Nwadiugwu held on to get the win.
Kaiden Leary clinched the dual meet for the Rocketeers with a first round pin that made it 40-9 with six matches remaining. It was the fifth pin of the night for North. Keysun Wise kept the home team rolling along with a major victory and four points at heavyweight.
With the meet decided, North elected not to put up a wrestler at 106. Tanner Ferguson added a sixth North pin in a fiery match against Elyor Ruzmatov at 113. Kyle Hardie got one pin back for the Tigers at 120, although it looked for a second that Tyler Tobias might have spun things around and gotten the edge before Hardie countered and got the fall.
In the final match of the night, OA’s lone senior Stavros Constantinov got three takedowns and jumped out to a 6-2 lead after the first round. The score remained the same until the third round when a grip violation by North’s Braxton Ferro made it 7-2. Constantinov gave a point back for stalling, but he was able to wrap up his OA career with one last win.
“The Hock is tough,” McKeon said. “If we wrestled our non-league schedule, our record would be a lot more impressive. We’re a much better team than 3-8, but wrestling in the Hock, there are no givens.”
Burgess was also pleased with the development of a young roster. He said, “Almost this entire team is back next year. So, I think wherever we are at the end of this year will be a great stepping stone for next season and that’s really how we’re treating it, especially with our young guys.”
North Attleboro (10-1) will host third-seeded Hingham in the D2 South semifinal on Monday at noon. “They’re always very good,” Burgess said about facing the Harbormen in a dual meet for the first time in almost two decades. “We never wrestle each other head-to-head. It will be nice to kind of revive that rivalry. We’re excited.”