Section 5 Class A Championships

Varsity Wrestling Tournament

@ Fairport High School

February 16-17, 2001

Final Results

Webster sends four wrestlers to Supersectionals
Webster Post
February 21, 2001

Full Text: Copyright © 2001 Webster Post.
Reproduced with the permission of Messenger Post Newspapers.

An up-and-down season for the Webster wrestling program culminated in a successful outing last weekend at the Section 5 Class A Wrestling Championships.

The Warriors (6-7) finished fifth at the event with 84 points. Canandaigua broke Spencerport's 12-year strangle hold on the championship, totaling 200.5 team points.

"I know our record is down from last year but we came back and performed well at sectionals," said coach Dean Salvaggio, whose team finished third in Class A a year ago. "Placing fifth was a great accomplishment for a young team."

Leading the Way for Webster was eighth-grader Gregor Gillespie, who came into the tournament seeded first at 96 pounds and won the championship. It was his first title and Gillespie will be making his second trip to this weekend's Supersectionals at SUNY Brockport, where the top wrestlers from classes A through D battle for the right to advance to the state meet. He went 2-2 a year ago.

After a first-round bye, Gillespie recorded a 15-0 technical fall over Greece Arcadia's Chris Magee at 2 minutes, 41 seconds of their quarterfinal match.

In the semifinals, Gillespie pinned Joe Ranzanbach of Hilton with 30 seconds to go in the second period. He was leading 14-0 at the time.

Gillespie won an 11-2 major decision over Spencerport's Brett Woodward in the finals. Woodward narrowly escaped a pin three times during the match.

Gillespie goes into the state qualifiers as the No. 2 96-pounder in Section 5 behind Holley's Andrew Grillo. The two met earlier this season in the Genesee Valley Tournament, where Grillo won 8-6 in the finals.

Also moving on to Supersectionals is sophomore Andrew Krieger, who placed third at 119 pounds. Krieger went to the state qualifiers as a 103-pounder a year ago, going 4-2 at the event.

Krieger topped Brockport's Colby Fisher 2-0 following a first-round bye before losing to Trevor Chinn of Canandaigua 3-0 in the semifinals. In the wrestleback semifinals, Krieger edged Gates Chili's Greg Morsch 3-2 to advanced to the consolation finals, where he posted a 13-2 major decision over Brighton's Gene Kobylyanskiy. Kobylyanskiy finished second just ahead of Krieger at the county championships two weeks ago.

"That was a really big match for Andrew," said Salvaggio of Krieger's small slice of redemption.

Earning their first trips to the state qualifiers were junior Chirs Pilosi (135 pounds) and senior Matt Overlan (152), who each placed fourth.

Pilosi knocked off Marshall's Pat Zorn with a 17-1 technical fall at 3:45 of their preliminary match Friday. He then fell to Canandaigua's Sam Hapstack in overtime during the quarterfinals before rallying to defeat Churchville-Chili's Kyle Martin 10-3 and Fairport's Dan Safranec 4-3 in the wrestleback round. Hilton's Nick Romeo topped Pilosi 7-0 in the consolation finals.

Overlan came into the tournament seeded sixth and pinned Hilton's Matt Raymonda 40 seconds into the second period of their preliminary match before losing his quarterfinal battle with Canandaigua's Eric Mullen 10-2.

Overlan came back to defeat Greece Athena's Rob Gutierrez in the wrestlebacks before topping McQuaid's Jeremy Hellems 5-2. He beat fourth-seeded Mike Vitale of Churchville-Chili in overtime to advance to the consolation finals, where he was pinned by Canandaigua's Mullen.

Gillespie, Krieger, Pilosi and Overlan will travel to Brockport Friday and Saturday for the Supersectionals. To advance to the state meet you must win your weight class.