Wrestling Competes At The Oklahoma Gold Invitational
11/9/2013 12:00:00β―AM | Wrestling
BROCKPORT, NY - The Buffalo wrestling team competed at the Oklahoma Gold Invitational on Saturday, hosted by SUNY Brockport. Select members of the team wrestled against grapplers from Oklahoma, American, Army, Bloomsburg and Brockport. The team finished fourth in the overall competition, earning 95.5 points as a team.
"We did some good things out there today," stated first year head coach John Stutzman. "I was very pleased with our overall team effort this afternoon. We will take what happened here today and learn from it and get better."
Nick Flannery had the team's best finish of the afternoon, taking home a second place finish at 141 pounds. His only loss came in the finals, to Nick Lester of Oklahoma. Flannery dominated Mark Marchetti of Army in the opening round, 8-4. He recorded a major decision victory, 9-0, in the second round over Dalton Dennis before his semifinal round win over Matt Rappo from Bloomsburg, a 6-4 decision.
Another second place finish for the Bulls came from Tony Lock in the 184 pound weight class. Lock started the afternoon with a strong victory over Stone Druiman from Oklahoma. Lock picked up a major decision, 10-2, in the semifinal round over Austin Wilding from Army before losing in the finals to Ryan Tompkins of Army.
Max Soria continued to prove why he was the second ranked 125 pound wrestler in the MAC on Saturday as he earned a third place finish. Following an opening round loss to Jarrod Patterson from Oklahoma, Soria won three straight matches including a victory over his twin brother, Mike. In the third place match, Soria dominated Sean Boylan from Blomsburg.
Wally Maziarz picked up a fourth place finish in the 165 pound weight class while newcomer Tyler Rill also earned a fourth place finish at 171 pounds. In the third place match, Maziarz was downed by a grappler from Army while Rill was defeated by Mike Dessino from Bloomsburg.
The other Bulls finishing in the top five besides Flannery, Lock, Max Soria, Maziarz and Rill were Mike Soria, Justin Farmer, John Northrup and James Benjamin who all earned fifth place finishes.
The team will now train for the New York State Collegiate Championships, to be held on November 23rd in Ithaca. Buffalo finished fourth at last season's tournament, earning an individual title along the way.
