Post by atlantaal on May 4, 2021 20:29:58 GMT -5
Well sort of, mostly. It was called the "Spartan Combat New England Championship" tournament, held April 10-11 in Hempstead, NH. It was a very legit tournament with many of the best wrestlers from all six New England states, with some differences from the usual New England tournament. Since it wasn't approved by the New England Interscholastic Council there were no high schools represented, rather the competitors were identified by their club affiliation. And that opened the competition to prep school wrestlers who haven't been in the New England scholastic tournaments since the early-mid 1960's. Oh, and they included a 98 lb. class and awarded 8 place-winners.
As in recent years Rhode Island had only one titlist: Nicholas Fine won a strong 170 pound field. He pinned Joshua Cordio of Lancaster, MA in the finals. Cordio had been 3rd in last year's NEs at 170 and had beaten the previous runner-up, Kyle Gora of NH, in the semifinals. Two other RI wrestlers made the finals. Top seeded 285 Adolfo Betancur of Hendricken was edged 1-0 by Tristan Kemp of Oakham, MA, who Adolfo had beaten for 3rd place at the 2020 New England tourney after having lost to Kemp in sudden death in the quarterfinals. And freshman Gabriel Bouyssou of Scituate lost at 126 to Kai O'Dell of Danbury, CT, who had finished 5th in 2020 NEs at 113. Many of the top names from recent New England championships were there and had good showings (though neither Soda brother nor Maximilian Leete repeated as champs), but it seemed several of the biggest omissions were from Rhode Island: Michael Joyce, Aidan Faria and Cory Grifka, all of whom have been New England runners-up. Faria did appear the following weekend in the NHSCA Wrestling Championships and took 3rd in the Senior 160 pound class. The prep school competitors did exceedingly well, with champions or runners-up at 98, 120, 132, 145, 152 and 160 (maybe 182?). That surprised me, especially since probably the best prep school wrestler in NE, CT's Nico Prove was injured and didn't participate. Nico, who has beaten both Joziah Fry and Hunter Adrian in national tournaments the past two years won NHSCA Senior nationals at 126 the following weekend then Prep School Nationals at 120 the week after. So there is definitely an increase in wrestling talent throughout New England.
Moreover, there were some great finishes by other RI wrestlers. Hope's Nick Torres beat Coventry's Peyton Ellis for 3rd at 106, Coventry's Hayden Myers took 3rd at 113, Tim Cook of Ponaganset placed 4th at 132, Mt. Hope's Andrew McCarthy placed 6th at 98, Ponaganset's J'Mari Lowman finished 5th at 145 (though listed as a CT entrant as he was the following week at NHSCA), NK's Tony Tortora pinned Hope's Jonathan Feliz for 5th at 220, Aidan Zarrella of NK finished 8th at 145, Cumberland's Nolan Santos was 5th at 152, and EG's Michael Jarrell was 7th at 220, giving RI three placers at that weightclass.
So there are a lot of RI wrestlers who have been working hard and already competed well in 2021 with the rescheduled state high school wrestling season about to start. I've attached the NE results to this post. Brackets are still available on Floarena.
As in recent years Rhode Island had only one titlist: Nicholas Fine won a strong 170 pound field. He pinned Joshua Cordio of Lancaster, MA in the finals. Cordio had been 3rd in last year's NEs at 170 and had beaten the previous runner-up, Kyle Gora of NH, in the semifinals. Two other RI wrestlers made the finals. Top seeded 285 Adolfo Betancur of Hendricken was edged 1-0 by Tristan Kemp of Oakham, MA, who Adolfo had beaten for 3rd place at the 2020 New England tourney after having lost to Kemp in sudden death in the quarterfinals. And freshman Gabriel Bouyssou of Scituate lost at 126 to Kai O'Dell of Danbury, CT, who had finished 5th in 2020 NEs at 113. Many of the top names from recent New England championships were there and had good showings (though neither Soda brother nor Maximilian Leete repeated as champs), but it seemed several of the biggest omissions were from Rhode Island: Michael Joyce, Aidan Faria and Cory Grifka, all of whom have been New England runners-up. Faria did appear the following weekend in the NHSCA Wrestling Championships and took 3rd in the Senior 160 pound class. The prep school competitors did exceedingly well, with champions or runners-up at 98, 120, 132, 145, 152 and 160 (maybe 182?). That surprised me, especially since probably the best prep school wrestler in NE, CT's Nico Prove was injured and didn't participate. Nico, who has beaten both Joziah Fry and Hunter Adrian in national tournaments the past two years won NHSCA Senior nationals at 126 the following weekend then Prep School Nationals at 120 the week after. So there is definitely an increase in wrestling talent throughout New England.
Moreover, there were some great finishes by other RI wrestlers. Hope's Nick Torres beat Coventry's Peyton Ellis for 3rd at 106, Coventry's Hayden Myers took 3rd at 113, Tim Cook of Ponaganset placed 4th at 132, Mt. Hope's Andrew McCarthy placed 6th at 98, Ponaganset's J'Mari Lowman finished 5th at 145 (though listed as a CT entrant as he was the following week at NHSCA), NK's Tony Tortora pinned Hope's Jonathan Feliz for 5th at 220, Aidan Zarrella of NK finished 8th at 145, Cumberland's Nolan Santos was 5th at 152, and EG's Michael Jarrell was 7th at 220, giving RI three placers at that weightclass.
So there are a lot of RI wrestlers who have been working hard and already competed well in 2021 with the rescheduled state high school wrestling season about to start. I've attached the NE results to this post. Brackets are still available on Floarena.
