Wrestling: Pleasantville defeats Greeley, 42-27, extends dual meet winning streak to 12
CHAPPAQUA - With the two-year gap in between wrestling seasons, expectations were unclear heading into this winter for the Pleasantville Panthers.
There were plenty of new faces and rust to shake off. They also had nine wrestlers that were forced to miss the season-opening Section 1 Dual Meet Tournament due to their exciting, deep playoff run to the Carrier Dome with the football team.
Amid the uncertainty, they were confident that they were going to be a force on the mat once they returned to full strength.
Since losing to Nanuet in the Section 1 Division II Dual Meet Tournament semifinals, the last meet that Pleasantville's football-playing wrestlers had to sit out, the Panthers have only enjoyed the sweet taste of victory.
They defeated Horace Greeley on Tuesday night, 42-27, extending their dual meet winning streak to 12.
"It was nice to come out on (Greeley's) Senior Day and get a big win for our team," Pleasantville junior Luke LaMagna said. "I don't think we wrestled to our potential, but we'll work on that in practice. ... We're never really satisfied, we always can do better than we actually wrestle, and we just want to be in our best shape for sectionals."
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During this winning streak, Pleasantville has taken down Division I and II schools, even recently defeating Section 1 Division II champion Edgemont.
"The intensity was really up when the football kids came back to the room, but we all don't take any days off," said Pleasantville senior Nick Paternostro, who was one of the nine that had to sit out at the beginning of the season. "Every practice is like a match, and we work hard, and I think that's what makes us a good team together.
"I think if we had our full team, as we should have, I think we definitely would have been going up to Syracuse (for the NYSPHSAA Dual Meet Tournament), but it is what it is."
Even as the Panthers continue to roll, they've still dealt with their share of adversity and challenges — with wrestlers rotating in and out of the lineup due to injury or sickness, but the experience of dealing with the absences early on and throughout the season only helped the younger wrestlers stay ready to rise up to the occasion.
"I was happy we won, but I knew (Greeley) was going to be a challenge," Pleasantville coach Bob Bernarducci said. "They've beaten some good teams, they beat Mahopac last week, John Jay a couple weeks ago, so I was happy with the outcome. I don't think we wrestled our best. It's been a revolving door since Christmas with kids out being sick and coming back. Hopefully, we'll be healthy in the next couple of weeks and wrestle a little sharper."
Unfortunately for Horace Greeley, it wasn't able to top off its Senior Day celebrations with a win, but it comes way with lessons learned on the mat.
"Overall, we wrestled pretty tough, Pleasantville is a solid team and one of the powerful teams in the small schools," Quakers coach Anthony Tortora said. "We had a couple really good matchups, and they won the 50-50s, and that was the difference. I feel like a guy like Josh Hametz, our 132-pounder, wrestled Quinn Egan, who is undefeated — he showed himself that he can compete with a high-level guy.
"Hopefully, that builds some confidence for a guy like him going into counties. Then, our younger guys, the effort is there, it's just more of drilling and getting our timing down, and hopefully counties will be a better showing."
Regardless of the result, it doesn't dampen the impact that Horace Greeley's six seniors — Diego Villaronga-Cortes, Luke Richards, Jason Lunger, Vinny Santelia, Julian Coku and Michael Tavolacci — have on the team."
"Those six guys have given a lot to our program," Tortora said. "It was really good to see Diego, Vinny and Luke get wins on their senior night. They're the leaders of the program, and they got big shoes that they're going to leave that will need to be filled next year. Hopefully, the younger guys can step up and do that."
Momentous matches
118 pounds: A fun one to start the meet, a closely-contested battle that had many reversals, lead changes and ties. In the end, Horace Greeley's Kai Lueckerath held on for an 8-6 win over Pleasantville's Grant Kelly.
126 pounds: Immediately after that close Lueckerath-Kelly bout, it was another tightly-contested match between Pleasantville's Luke LaMagna and Horace Greeley's Tommy Antes. LaMagna was able to score some insurance points late and fended off Antes for a 5-2 win.
152 pounds: Horace Greeley's Luke Richards got the senior day win over Pleasantville's Adriana Palumbo. Palumbo was leading the match, until Richards was able to free himself and get the pin just before the end of the first period.
160 pounds: The final match of the meet that went the distance, Pleasantville's Asa Nunberg was able to hold off Horace Greeley's Andreas Gowdie. Gowdie scored a late takedown, but ran out of time as Nunberg clung onto a 7-6 win.
110 pounds: The meet was already decided by the time this final match came up for the night, but Horace Greeley's Diego Villaronga-Cortes also got to enjoy a win to top off his Senior Night. Villaronga-Cortes got a second-period pin over Pleasantville's Jesse Straus.
Wrestlers of the meet
Nick Paternostro and Christian Perlleshi, Pleasantville: They wrestled strong in their matches and didn't waste time, getting early first-period pins, which also helped the Panthers build a lead and pull away early in team scoring.
Results
118: Kai Lueckerath (HG) over Grant Kelly (PSV) (8-6) 126: Luke LaMagna (PSV) over Tommy Antes (HG) (5-2) 132: Quinn Egan (PSV) over Josh Hametz (HG) (Fall 5:22) 138: Christian Perlleshi (PSV) over Otto Mindenhall (HG) (Fall 1:05) 145: Nick Paternostro (PSV) over Jon Kang (HG) (Fall 0:49) 152: Luke Richards (HG) over Adriana Palumbo (PSV) (Fall 1:54) 160: Asa Nunberg (PSV) over Andreas Gowdie (HG) (7-6) 172: Vinny Santelia (HG) over Brian Straus (PSV) (DQ) 189: Eric Mogrovejo (PSV) over Lucas Saland (HG) (Fall 1:21) 215: Vinny Sasso (HG) wins by forfeit 285: Jo Jo Alesawy (PSV) over John Flannery (HG) (Fall 1:24) 102: Ciaran Egan (PSV) over Zach Haber (HG) (Fall 3:58) 110: Diego Villaronga-Cortes (HG) over Jesse Straus (PSV) (Fall 3:24)
Quotable
"I'm very happy with how we've done," Bernarducci said of his team's growth throughout the season. "I was kind of worried about the numbers we'd have, and we end up getting 25 kids out, which isn't bad. I'm happy with how it's gone, but I still think we haven't wrestled our best match yet. We're gonna have some tests down the road. We have the Port Chester Duals coming up, so we'll see some good teams there."
Follow Eugene Rapay on Twitter at @erapay5 and on Instagram at @byeugenerapay.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Wrestling: Pleasantville beats Greeley, extends win streak to 12
