East Hartford’s Jaeckz Mendez (144) controls Simsbury’s Julian Sinani in Wednesday night’s CCC match in Simsbury. The Hornets won, 60-17.
SIMSBURY, Dec. 18, 2024 – The East Hartford High wrestling team has been in contention for CIAC Class LL championships the last four seasons.
The Hornets shared a championship with Danbury in 2022 and finished second by 4½ points to Trumbull in 2023. A year ago, the Hornets had five individual Class LL champions and finished third.
Four of those five Class LL state champions are back for East Hartford along with a seasoned freshman who won a New England middle school championship a year ago.
That experience and skill was too much for Simsbury as East Hartford won 11 of 14 matches in a 60-17 win in the season-opening match for both schools.
“East Hartford is something special this year,” Simsbury coach T.J. Silva said. “Their loaded. They are bringing back five (State) Open placewinners, (four) state champions. I really think they are a good measuring stick (for us). Every year, we aspire to be the best team in the state and the best team in New England.
“I think this was a little eye-opening for some of my guys – even our tougher guys,” Silva said. “They saw where they are at and where they will need to be. We’ll use this as fuel in the fire and build off this.”
East Hartford had five pins and won two matches by technical fall, which could be a more common occurrence with wrestlers earning three points for a takedown and two-to-five points with near falls with changes being made to wrestling scoring rules this season.
“Obviously, we’re happy with the result,” East Hartford coach Todd Roberts said. “The road looks good going forward but there are definitely things we need to work on. It’s the first match of the season and there are things on my radar now that we need to clean up.”
The Hornets have aspirations of winning a Class LL championship and challenging for the State Open and New England championships.
Jaeckez Mendez, Isaac Quiles, Yaxier Rivera and Drayvn Roberts are the returning Class LL state champions for the Hornets. Mendez is a two-time Class LL champion while Roberts and Quiles are three-time Class LL champions.
East Hartford has also added freshman Riley Storazuk (157), an experienced wrestler who won a New England title as an eighth grade student.
The challenge for the Hornets will be developing some wrestlers to score points at the state championship meets outside of their finalists.
SImsbury graduated 14 seniors from last year’s team and four returning wrestlers transferred to other schools. But the Trojans do return defending New England champion Max Konopka (190).
East Hartford took an early 30-0 after six matches with three pins and a pair of technical falls. The Hornets had plenty of takedowns, including the first takedown in five of the first six matches.
Jose DeJesus (132), Issac Quiles (138), Jaeckz Mendez (144) had pins with Avery Porter (126) and Riley Storazuk (157) winning with technical falls (winning by 15 points or more).
A pair of Simsbury forfeits boosted the East Hartford lead to 42-0 before Konopka (190) got Simsbury on the board with a technical fall victory of his own, 17-2.
Simsbury hosts the annual Frank Chaves Invitational this weekend while East Hartford will travel to Manchester to compete in the Skip Ardan Invitational. The Hornets have won the last two Skip Ardan tournaments.
East Hartford 60, Simsbury 17
At Simsbury
126: Avery Porter (EH) tech fall Evan Angelo, 18-5; 132: Jose Dejesus (EH) pin Mick Granger, 0:53; 138: Issac Quiles (EH) pin Coleman Finn, 4:40; 144: Jaeckz Mendez (EH) pin Julian Sinani; 150: Jeremiah Dejesus (EH) dec. Jude Hite, 15-4; 157: Riley Storazuk (EH) tech fall Kevin Wojtowicz, 19-2; 165: Yaxier Rivera (EH) forfeit; 175: Drayvn Roberts (EH) forfeit; 190: Max Konopka (S) tech fall Carmelo Darling, 17-2; 215: Brett Osborne (S) pin Alex Perez, 285: Westley Jackson (EH) pin Jaden Martin; 106: Xavier Aiciea (EH) pin Austin Nitko; 113: Chris Montovanni (EH) pin Moses Olea-Sullivan; 120: Ethan Quinn (S) forfeit
Records: East Hartford 1-0, Simsbury 0-1
