Wrestling: Clarkstown South continues upswing with win over rival Clarkstown North, 41-30

NEW CITY - It had been a couple of years since Clarkstown North and Clarkstown South faced each other in a dual meet, a gap that was partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the district's decision to sideline both teams from competition last winter. Despite the time in between, there was hardly any love lost between the two rivals.

Thursday night's clash between the Rams and Vikings hardly needed any further explanation or motivational speeches, the names on the opposing singlets spoke for themselves.

"It's interesting because we have one middle school that splits into two high schools," Clarkstown North coach Tony Mellino said. "A lot of these guys are friends and former teammates. It's a rivalry without being a bloodthirsty rivalry, because they might be friends outside of the building, but when you get on the mat you're enemies. It's an interesting rivalry because your former teammates become your rivals."

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Previous records and past history don't matter much.

"It's year to year, that's it, because two years ago doesn't mean anything," Clarkstown South coach Brenden Rogers said. "It's a totally different team for us, and a totally different team for them. Rivalry games, rivalry matches, whoever's hot that day and whoever's riding high that day gets it done."

The Vikings got it done on the road, defeating their crosstown foes, 41-30.

"This means so much," Vikings senior Justin Termine said. "North — they talk a lot, and it feels good to beat them and get our confidence up as a team. Everyone's been wrestling good, but we can all get better. We wrestle hard, wrestle together and just be a team."

After both teams traded pins to open the meet, Clarkstown South won seven consecutive matches, a stretch highlighted by three victories by pinfall, two major decision wins, one sudden victory and another by forfeit.

Clarkstown North's heavyweights dominated the later stages of the meet, and helped the Rams finish strong with four straight pins to close, but the Vikings' lead was too great to overcome.

Clarkstown South held on for the win. It's the latest in a recent surge by the Vikings. They've found individual success and place-finishers at tournaments, but as a team, they've only dropped two dual meets against Section 1 opponents since getting bounced out of the Section 1 Dual Meet Tournament quarterfinals by John Jay-Cross River to open the season.

"We'd come off of no wrestling the year before, and we've come a long way in that time," said Rogers, noting his team's progress since losing to John Jay on Dec. 8. "My hat's off to the kids on the team, because they've stuck with it and worked hard though highs and lows. When people ask me what's it like this year, coming off of a year off, I say we're knocking rust off still, but we're a lot better now than we were then. That's all you can ask as a coach, to improve every day and we've been doing it all year long. Anything's possible with these guys now."

For Clarkstown North, it'll look to learn from the positives and negatives. The Rams defeated Nyack in an earlier meet, but then lost to the Vikings in the doubleheader finale.

"That had no impact on the South match, that (Nyack) meet was a nice one for us to win," Mellino said. "Our guys were ready today for the South match. We came up a little short, and hopefully they'll use this as motivation going into divisionals and the postseason.

"This is one of the hardest working teams I've had, and we only have two seniors out of 29. It's a really young team that's prepping for the future. This is a team that comes in every day, every practice and works hard. This is one of the best teams I've had in terms of their work ethic, and now, it's just all about getting them ready for the postseason experience and learning to not make mistakes."

Momentous matches

102 pounds: Clarkstown South's Patrick Sweeney was trailing Clarkstown North's Jeremy Small, 3-0, before getting a late reversal that he eventually turned into a late third-period pin to set the tone and get the Vikings on the board first.

132 pounds: Both the Vikings' Greg Casvikes and the Rams' Seth Frendel medaled in the 132-pound weight class at this year's Rockland County championships. Frendel, who placed second, and Casvikes, who took third, didn't face each other at the tournament, but they battled on Thursday night. Casvikes earned a 13-1 major decision win. It was a close match through the first two periods, with Casvikes leading 3-0 entering the final frame.

145 pounds: Clarkstown South's Sabatino DeGregorio erased a late 6-3 deficit in the final 40 seconds of regulation, before battling back to tie it and force overtime. DeGregorio completed the comeback with an 8-6 sudden victory win over J.T. Roden.

172 pounds: Clarkstown North's Chris Ryan ended a seven-match winning streak for the Vikings, when he recorded a first-period pin over Clarkstown South's Dennis Fischer. It was also the start of a four-match winning streak by the Rams to close out the meet.

189 pounds: Rams junior Brian Bordas recorded the fastest pin of the meet, finishing Clarkstown South's Jordan Kleinman in 23 seconds. Both wrestlers had placed at the 189-pound Rockland County championships.

Wrestler of the meet

Justin Termine, Clarkstown South: The senior 126-pounder and Rockland County champ picked up from where he left off, aggressively taking control of his match from the opening whistle before finishing with a first-period pin to help the Vikings build an early lead and starting pulling away.

Results

102: Patrick Sweeney (CS) over Jeremy Small (CN) (Fall 5:53) 110: Dylan LaRocco (CN) over Louis Esposito (CS) (Fall 2:12) 118: Michael Hade (CS) won by forfeit 126: Justin Termine (CS) over Rcey Ortega (CN) (Fall 1:23) 132: Greg Casvikes (CS) over Seth Frendel (CN) (MD 13-1) 138: Andrew Scerbo (CS) over Cian Barry (CN) (Fall 1:55) 145: Sabatino DeGregorio (CS) over JT Roden (CN) (8-6 SV) 152: Liam Brew (CS) over Matt Cortelli (CN) (MD 11-2) 160: Anthony Ardizone (CS) over Theo Ryan (CN) (Fall 1:11) 172: Chris Ryan (CN) over Dennis Fischer (CS) (Fall 1:23) 189: Brian Bordas (CN) over Jordan Kleinman (CS) (Fall 0:23) 215: James Gordon (CN) over Jabes Tzoc (CS) (Fall 2:38) 285: Justin Smoot (CN) over Alfred Smith (CS) (Fall 3:19)

Quotable

"As a team, everyone's improved significantly," Termine said. "It's so good to see that everyone's become a better wrestler and everyone's helping each other on this team. Everyone's getting in the right mindset, wrestling hard and training hard. Everyone knows we have to train hard for what's coming up next."

Follow Eugene Rapay on Twitter at @erapay5 and on Instagram at @byeugenerapay.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Wrestling: Clarkstown South defeats rival Clarkstown North, 41-30