SOURCE: www.monroecopost.com

March 08, 2001

Penfield's Leavy finishes fourth at state meet
Penfield Post
March 08, 2001

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

When heavyweight Jon Leavy lost his first match at 215 pounds during last weekend's state championships in Syracuse he had no other choice but to pull himself up by the bootstraps and keep plugging along.

"I was pretty disappointed," said the senior looking back on his loss to Port Jervis' Scott Proscia (Section 9). "I knew that I couldn't be state champion but I just decided to place the best I could."

That moment seemed to define Leavy's first trip to the Onondaga War Memorial as he breezed through the wrestleback round on his way to a fourth-place finish.

"I was a little nervous at first but after the first match my nerves settled down and I wrestled up to my expectations," commented Leavy.

After receiving a first-round bye in the consolation bracket, Leavy pinned Eddie Gordon (Section 8) in just 84 seconds to move on to the second round of wrestlebacks. He then topped Brentwood's Larry Banks (Section 11) via third-period pin in the quarterfinals. Leavy had Banks on his back 30 seconds into the match, but the official clock lost power and the match was halted.

"That just ruined my momentum," Leavy said of the mishap. "But I had a lot of time left so I picked it back up and put it him on his back a couple times."

Leavy was challenged in the semifinals by East Syracuse-Minoa's Chris Doran, but held on for a 5-4 victory. After a first-period takedown, Leavy entered the second period leading 2-0. Doran scored a reversal and near pin, however, to take a 4-2 lead.

Leavy eventually escaped Doran's grasp to draw within one point and took the lead with a pair of back points later in the period to secure the win.

In the consolation finals, Leavy dropped a 8-4 decision to Pioneer's (Section 6) Chris Purtell.

"It was a great weekend for Jon," said Penfield coach Rob Thomas. "He was right up there with the top five or six kids. I wouldn't doubt that he could beat those top kids."

Leavy, who holds the single-season Penfield pin record (25) and career pin mark (68) finished his four-year career 90-36 after posting a 33-3 record this season.

He credits his success to hard offseason work in the weight room and with the APEX Wrestling Club, which works out of East Rochester and Spencerport. He also thinks working with assistant coach Brian Maier, himself a former heavyweight, has been extremely helpful to his career.

Leavy hopes to continue that career or possibly pursue football, in which he was an All-County defensive lineman this past fall, at either Division I Wyoming or Division III SUNY Cortland.