MONTICELLO –– It was a brisk but clear Friday night with Monticello hosting Washingtonville for a wrestling meet. Monticello is a new team at only 2 years old with Coach Patrick Owens at the helm. Owens has years of experience in wrestling that he’s bringing to Monticello’s fledgling program. The Panthers just got all new gear, mats and practice space and Coach Owens plans to utilize that to build a solid team for years to come. 

The JV matches  were up first but you wouldn’t know it by how animated the crowd was. The Panthers JV wrestler, Sincere, secured their final JV match giving a bit of momentum leading into the varsity contest. Sincere certainly brought the intensity and will be a solid varsity wrestler if he continues his path. 

The Varsity matches had a similar outcome to the JV with Monticello only taking the win in two out of the 11 total matches. Washingtonville was able to secure the win with 50 points overall to Monticello’s 18. The breakdown of each match was as follows:

160 lbs: The Panthers Chase Perston was able to start the match with a big takedown. His opponent recovered but shortly after Perston had a massive mat return and won by pin around 2 minutes into the match. 

170 lbs: Maximus Barbosa had a rapid and explosive start but his Washingtonville opponent had a slight edge and was able to secure a pin over him.

190 lbs: Dion Knight had quite the battle against his opponent with both wrestling being pretty evenly matched. But as the match went on Dion’s opponent was able to maintain slight dominance that led to a 10-5 loss by decision for Knight. 

215 lbs: Brent Murran fell to a quick take down early on in his match.

285 lbs: Julio Santiago was able to secure a pin at around a minute and half after an intense standing battle. Julio had one of the Panthers’ only pins alongside Chase Perston.

101 lbs: Gianna Baron won by forfeit.

116 lbs: Zachary Zuck had an early takedown against his opponent and went into double overtime in an intense back and forth battle. Unfortunately Zuck lost by pin at the end of the second overtime. 

124 lbs: Ronald Brigman started out up by 3 points but succumbed to a pin in his match. 

131 lbs: Jasper Hance lost his match by pin early in his bout.

138 lbs: Alberto Ortiz escaped an early pin. He fought his way out and started to match his opponents aggression. Unfortunately it was short lived as he lost to a pin on the second attempt.

145 lbs: Scott Larusso faced an incredibly dominant opponent but fell short in his matchup.

152 lbs: Thomas Macias faced an incredibly explosive and quick opponent that quickly Macias would lose by a technical but fought hard the entire match.

It was a tough wrestling meet overall for the Panthers but they are a new team and are still learning a lot. Their Coach Patrick Owens had this to say afterwards, 

“It was a solid match and we’ve definitely improved. We’re looking for growth and improvement not perfection because we’re gonna be here for a while and this is just the start.”