State Farm Classic

Interscholastic Varsity Wrestling Tournament
@ Hornell High School (Hornell, NY)
Saturday, January 21, 2006
 

Final Results

Red Raiders just beat out Letchworth for State Farm title
By Matt Wing, Spectator Sports
The Sunday Spectator (Hornell, NY)

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Full Text: Copyright © 2006 Hornell Evening Tribune.

HORNELL - For the first time in three years, the Hornell wrestling team was able to lift the State Farm Classic trophy for its own tournament following a long and exhausting day at Hornell High School.

The Red Raiders, who had five of its seven team members in the championship round come away with victories, won by 17 points over second place Letchworth, the defending champion of the tournament.

“Overall we wrestled well,” said Hornell coach Matt Sheldon. “Again it was my horses. We had seven kids in the finals, but it was nice that we had a couple of younger kids place third and fourth and that really helps. It's hard to have four or five kids win it.”

Hornell's Tyler Sick went 3-0 and defeated Canisteo-Greenwood's Kyle Amidon in the finals at 152 pounds en route to being named the Most Outstanding Wrestler of the tournament for the weight classes from 140 pounds and above.

“A lot, because it's my first one,” said Sick what it meant to win the MOW award. “My whole life I've wondered if I was ever going to win one and finally I pulled through. Actually, I'd rather win that than a lot of the other awards I've won.”

Sick recorded three takedowns, one in each period, and allowed Amidon to get back to the neutral position all three times. However, Amidon was never able to mount any offense of his own.

“I knew it would be close, but I didn't know what the outcome would be,” said Sick. “I felt confident I could win. I just had to perform the best at neutral because that's one of my best positions.”

Bolivar-Richburg's Andrew Taylor, whose team finished third in the standings, went 4-0 and defeated Jasper-Troupsburg's Mark Guinnup in OT at 125 pounds to claim the lower-weight MOW.

“When I came into it, I don't know if I felt scared, but I was a little nervous to wrestle Guinnup again,” said Taylor. “The last time I wrestled him I got a concussion, so I had to go out there and give it all I had.”

“It means a lot,” Taylor added of the award. “This is the third MOW that I've gotten, but this one means the most because I worked the hardest for it.”

Taylor was ahead 1-0 heading into the final period, but was penalized a point for three false starts to tie the match at 1-1. At the end of the first overtime period, Taylor took advantage of a mistake by Guinnup to score the match-deciding points at the buzzer and win, 3-1.

“He put himself in a bad position for a split second and I capitalized,” said Taylor. “If I didn't, it would have went into double overtime and you never know what's going to go on then.”

Hornell's other champions include Joe Sirianni at 96 pounds, Scott Ray at 130, Andy Drake at 135 and Aaron Parks at 140, while Ryan Dieter (145) and Dan Rosemier (189) both lost tough contests in the finals.

Other area champions include A-A's Jason Fraser at 119, B-R's Derrick Dorvitt at 171, C-G's Nick Clark at 189, Fillmore's Nick Clark at 215 and Bath's Bryant Madigan at 275.