Xavier won the Mid-Hudson Tournament for the third time in five seasons. Winners of individual weight classes in the tournament receive a championship singlet. (Photo courtesy Mike Cunningham)
For the third time in the last five years, Xavier has captured the 57th annual Mid-Hudson Tournament in Arlington, New York with four individual champions and six finalists. The Falcons beat Hewlett, New York by nearly 100 points – 98½ to be exact.
Charles Weidman (215) won an individual championship for the second straight year while Raekwon Shabazz (116), Anthony Basile (138) and Max Morse (170) also won titles. Cael Loria (145) and John Lagana (152) each finished second.
Seamus Hallinan (124) and Kyle Levesque (145) each finished third with Zach Dixon (101) taking fourth.
The Falcons won the tournament title a year ago and in 2019. They are the only Connecticut team to have won this tournament.
Xavier had a tournament-leading 53 pins in the 27-team tournament, followed by Arlington (New York) High with 47. Weidman and Morse had eight pins each in eight matches with Levesque getting six pins. Shabazz had five pins and two technical falls. Weidman had seven pins in less than a minute with four pins in less than 25 seconds (0:25, 0:18, 0:13, 0:14 seconds).
The Mid-Hudson tournament began in 1965 and is the longest running high school tournament in New York state.
The two-day event is not a typical tournament. On day one, wrestlers compete in pools wrestling four or five times to advance to the finals with an eight-wrestler bracket to determine the medalists on day two.
Results: Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023
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Greens Farms Academy’s Ronny Christolin (Norwalk) finished second at 150 pounds at the Sam Cali Invitational at Fairleigh Dickinson University on Thursday as the Dragons finished third in the tournament behind New Jersey’s Blair Academy and current New England public high school champion Ponaganset, Rhode Island.
Christolin went 4-1 in the tournament, beating the No. 2 seed Brandon Bauer of Central Arkansas Christian and No. 3 seed Jeremy Quezada of Dumont to earn a spot in the championship match. Jamar Dixon of Delsea beat Christolin, 7-0.
GFA’s Ben Zuckerman (Fairfield, 132) and Dominic Iaquinto (Danbury, 215) each finished third with teammate Brighton Karvoski (Newtown, 106) finishing fourth.
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With two individual champions and six finalists, Enfield took third for the third straight season at the Phil Tomkeil Invtational tournament in Agawam, Mass., on Thursday. Host Agawam won the tournament with 274½ points followed by Natick, Mass., with 234 and Enfield with 189. Ethan Buonanducci (126) and Keonta Crawford (285) won individual titles for Enfield. Reese Titus of Canton also won an individual title at 138 pounds.
Agawam won for the third straight year and scored the most points in the last 15 years, topping the 271 points that Springfield’s Putnam Vocational Tech had when they won the tournament in 2018.
Phil Tomkeil, who founded the Agawam High program, is a Hall of Fame coach inducted into the Massachusetts chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2009.
