Connecticut Wrestling Online

Welch, Desilets are wrestlers of the week, great action at RW

New England Wrestling Association

CO-NEWA Wrestler of Week: David Welch, Roger Williams University 184 pounds sophomore, Salem, N.H.

Welch went 5-0 over the weekend on his way to winning the Roger Willliams Invitational. 184 was the toughest weight class in the tournament with two returning All-Americans in the bracket. Welch started the day pinning 2 of his first 3 opponents and then beat returning All American and last years 3rd place finisher at the weight class at the NCAA’s Josh Thomson 5-3 in SV-1. Welch then went on and beat Jon Deupree of Southern Maine in the finals 7-5 after Deupree a placer at last year’s regional beat last years region champ and All American Colin Lenhardt. Welch is an exciting wrestler to watch compete and he is definitely in the conversation of wrestlers that can be at the top of the podium at the end of the season.

CO-NEWA Wrestler of Week: Everett Desilets, Johnson & Wales, 157 pounds, sophomore, (Cranston, R.I.)

Desilets is off to another great start to the season. He looked dominate this weekend going 5-0 and winning the RWU Invitational at 157. Everett had two tech falls and 2 first period pins including a semi-final pin in :28 seconds. In the finals Desilets beat Francisco Colom of RWU 10-5. Colom won the Monarch Invitational two weekends ago knocking off a returning All-American.

NEWA Rookie Wrestler of Week: Paul Sughrue, Bridgewater State University, 133, Methuen, MA.

Paul placed 2nd at the RWU invite this past weekend. He opened the tournament with a pin followed by two straight decisions including an exciting overtime win over a returning regional placer winner from Stevens Tech. Paul is 4-1 on the season with 2 pins and 8 takedowns.

Team Results from RWU Invitational: Johnson and Wales was second with 149, Roger Williams Invitational was 4th with 128, Wesleyan was tied for 5th with 79.5, Norwich was 7th with 75.5, USM was 8th with 67.5, Bridgewater State University was 9th with 62.5, Coast Guard was 10th with 53.5 and WPI was 11th with 37 points.

The Roger Williams Invitational saw some great matches over the weekend and some great individual efforts. ... At 125 Anthony D’Anton picked up from last year showing his ability to wrestle tough and win close decisions. D’Anton won his first three matches to make the finals and take 2nd. Mike Ferinde of JWU went 4-1 and took 3rd place. Ferinde is wrestling very tough taking 3rd in a weight class that had two returning NCAA qualifiers and AA’s competing. ... At 149 Chris Siracusa of Wesleyan went 4-1 with a pin and took second place. Siracusa up two weight classes from last season looked sharp in his opening weekend. The NESCAC schools only had 10 practices before the weekend so they usually start a little slow, making Siracusa’s performance that impressive. Ethan Farrell of JWU took 3rd at 149. Farrell who has been a major contributor for the Wildcats, showed his talent with Gaccione out of the lineup by taking third and going 4-1 for the day. He beat last years 4th place finisher in the region Mike Giorgio of Coast Guard in the quarterfinals, 9-0. Francisco Colom of RWU went 4-1 and took second place before losing to Desilets in the finals. These two wrestlers are no strangers to each other and both know they will be up for a battle every time they take the mat to face off. Colom is having a great season and the second place finish this weekend will only fuel him more for his next shot at Desilets as both wrestlers have big goals for the season. ... Colin Crowell made it look easy over the weekend winning the tournament going 4-0 at 165. Crowell a returning region champ beat a very tough Dave Pinto of Norwich in the final 8-1. Pinto is having a great season and went 4-1 on the day to take 2nd place. Crowell is now ranked No. 4 nationally. ... Pinto’s teammate Will Burns also had a great day at 165 going 6-1 and wrestled back to take 3rd place. Burns and Pinto give coach Whitney great flexibility for dual meets in the upper part of the Norwich lineup. ... 174 pounds was a very interesting weight class over the weekend. The most impressive win was Ryan Sblendorio of Wesleyan who beat last year’s Region Finalist and 6th place finisher nationally Lou Puca of Cortland 5-3. Sblendorio would go 5-2 and take 5th place on the short practice and definitely solidified himself as a wrestler who will compete for a region title at 174. In the semifinals, Sblendorio would fall to Ben Kramer an All American a year ago by decision. On the bottom part of the bracket Mike Labell of JWU took second place and went 4-1 on the day. After beating Ricardo Plummer of Messiah a retuning national qualifier in the quarterfinals he then won by DQ over Dan Ressler of RWU who is having a great year at the weight class as well. Labell had two first period pins and has placed in his first two tournaments this season. Ressler was 3-0 before getting DQ from the tournament including a win over Ryan Dormann of Stevens. Dormann has been a top 15 wrestler at the weight class nationally for the past few years as a two-time national qualifier. ... If wrestling fans thought 174 was a tough weight and had great competition 184 pounds was right there with it. The weight class saw two All-American wrestlers not make the finals. Welch the champ and Co-NEWA wrestler of the week looked impressive. Jon Deupree of USM went 3-1 and beat returning AA Lenhardt on his way to a second place finish. Lenhardt wrestled well going 5-1 and wrestled back to take 3rd place. Both Lenhardt of JWU and Puca of Cortland both lost in the semi’s and wrestled back for third place showing their mental toughness that helped them earn AA honors last season. ... Shane Parcel went 4-0 enroute to winning the 197 pound title. Parcel beat Giaramita of Cortland 8-7 in the finals. Giaramita was an All American two years ago at 285 and is currently ranked 6th in the country at 197. Parcel was another wrestler taking advantage of a great opportunity over the weekend. Parcel who is always ready to compete won a great weight class that saw two other region placers in it as well with Fagan of USM who was 4th and Roometua of Wesleyan who was 3rd at last years region tournament. This time Fagan came out on top in the rematch with Roometua with a 3-1 decision on his way to a 4th place finish on the weekend as Roometua took 5th in his opening tournament of the year. .... At 285 Dan Suarez of USM and Ricky Caruso of BSU both looked very good. Suarez went 3-1 and took second and Caruso went 5-1 and took 3rd. Both wrestlers lost to Lance Moore of Cortland by close decisions. Both wrestlers had two pins on the day. Suarez had a big pin over Madosky of JWU in the semifinals and Caruso pinned Maldonado of Norwich in the Quarters. Both Madosky and Maldonado had great Ithaca tournaments two weeks ago.

Some other notable place winners and impressive wins from the RWU invite. ... Norwich had one other placer besides Pinto and Burns with Joyce 5th at 285. WPI had two placers in Perruccio at 149 who after losing in the Semi’s medically defaulted to 6th and Justin Marsh who went 4-2 to take 5th place. BSU had 3 placers at the RWU invite (Sughrue 2nd, Caruso 3rd). BSU Junior Matt Armano looked tough at 157 going 5-2 and taking 5th place. Andrew Stock took 4th place for JWU at 165. Stock went 4-2 and had 4 pins. Marc Wagner of the Coast Guard went 4-2 and took 5th place at a very tough 184 pound weight class. RWU and JWU each placed 7 wrestlers.

Freshman Honor Roll: At the RWU invitational, rookie wrestler of the week Sughrue has made the jump to college wrestling smoothly and has really wrested well his first two weeks. He took second place at 133. Freshman 125 at JWU Joe Smith (5-2 took 4th), Pat LaCroix of RWU at 133 went 5-1 on his way to taking 3rd place, Matt Vieira of the Coast Guard was 4th at 149 going 6-2 on the day with two pins. Carl Luth of USM was 5th at 149 but actually gave Vieira one of his two loses on the day before finishing behind him in the tournament. Luth was 4-2 on the day. Wesleyan had two freshman place at 141 in Matt Pelton who was 5th with a 4-2 record and Eddie Pierce who was 6th going 4-1 on the day. Pierce MF to his teammate Pelton in the 5th place match. Kyle Foster of RWU was 6th at 285 going 3-3.

In other action on the weekend: Plymouth State and Western New England wrestled in a quad meet. PSU went 3-0 on the day while WNEU went 2-1. Both teams beat MCC and STCC and PSU came out on top against WNEU with a 27-15 win. Jamison Sacco and Sean McCallister were both 3-0 on the day for the Golden Bears. Hunter Fogarty at 157 and Chris Perreault at 197 both went 3-0 for the Panthers. ... Rhode Island College went out to a quad at Oneonta, NY and wrestled very tough. They went 2-1 losing to national powerhouse Ithaca College but beat a very good Oneonta team as well as Alfred State. Kevin Barrucci at 157 and Brian Nicol at 285 both went 3-0 and wrestled great. Barrucci beat a tough Kevin Collins from Ithaca 1-0 and Nicol beat Chris Ramirez of Ithaca 8-1. Those are two very good regional wins for Barrucci and Nicol. ... Williams College beat Trinity College 37-15. It is a good opening dual meet for both teams that start practice a few weeks later than the rest of the conference. Williams had Garripoli down at 149 who won by forfeit and Lopez up at 157 who won by pin. Williams also got two pins from the Brooks brothers (Carson at 141 and Anthony at 197). It was nice to see Kyle Lundberg back in the lineup for Trinity who opened his season up with a 4-1 win.