Fitch Falcons flatten foes

December 23, 2016 at 12:10a.m.

Boardman Triangular Wrestling

BOARDMAN

With two wins over All-American Conference rivals during Thursday’s tri-meet at Boardman High School, Austintown Fitch wrestling coach John Burd maintains that his team is still a work in progress, but adds that he likes the direction in which his team is heading.

After posting wins over the host Spartans and Howland Tigers, Burd’s Falcons just served notice to the rest of the league that the conference title does, in fact, run through Austintown.

The Falcons (6-0, 4-0) defeated the Tigers 74-3 then added a 65-12 win over Boardman to remain undefeated heading into the Christmas holiday break.

The Spartans (6-3, 2-1) were victorious over the Tigers (0-4, 0-3) by a 60-24 count, finishing 1-1 while the Tigers went 0-2.

“The guys wrestled really hard tonight and our goal is to win each position from start to finish,” Burd said. “We feel as if we’re a good team, but there’s still a long way to go. It’s early in the year so we need to improve our conditioning, as well as our technique.”

The Falcons produced multiple dual winners with Drew Fairbanks and Marco Parry leading the way

At 138 pounds, Fairbanks needed just 14 seconds to pin Howland’s Dennis Currey in his opening match, following that with a pin (3:13) over Boardman’s John Fleet to move to 11-0 this season.

“I wrestled Currey last year and knew what he was like, but in the second match I just wrestled hard on top and was able to get the win,” Fairbanks said. “The goal is a league title so it was definitely nice to get two league wins tonight.”

Also posting two wins for the Falcons was Parry, who stopped Howland’s Chuck Heckman at 1:03 and Boardman’s Chandler Klinker just 22 seconds into their match.

“I really didn’t know what to expect in my first match since we had never faced each other. In the second match, I didn’t think I’d get the pin,” Parry said. “I just tried my best.”

The Spartans’ Michael O’Hara pinned Howland’s Nathan Scott (1:50) at 170 pounds, following that up with a pin (2:30) over the Falcons’ Willie Beverly — one of just two wins by Boardman over the conference leaders.

“I got a pinning combination and then the pin in the first match. In my second match, my setups and takedowns were working,” he said. “I worked my tilt on top and that’s how I ended up pinning him.”

Boardman’s other double winner was Carlo DeNiro at 182 pounds.

DeNiro stopped Howland’s Jackson Deemer at 1:29 and Fitch’s Kyle Varga at 2:49.

“We have a lot of new kids this year and the one thing that we will need to work on is being better conditioned,” DeNiro said. “We’ll get to where we need to be but only with hard work.”

Spartans head coach Dom Mancini, now in his 16th season, agrees that his team is a work in progress.

“We lost a couple of close matches to Fitch, but close losses or being pinned isn’t going to cut it,” Mancini said. “We’re young and we’ll keep working while refining our technique. We must be able to wrestle a full six minutes.”

One bright spot for the Tigers was Chris Julian at 220 pounds.

Julian pinned Boardman’s Nick Caraballo (1:52), then earned a 2-0 win over the Falcons’ Brock Kimble.

“In my first match I was just trying to find a takedown, looking for a pin and it just came to me,” Julian said. “In my second match, I knew that Brock is very versatile and can throw you or shoot. I knew that I had to be smart.”

Tigers coach Matt Zakrajsek has just seven wrestlers back from last year’s team.

“We’re young and inexperienced, so we’re working on the basics,” Zakrajsek said. “We’re just working on getting everyone a lot of mat time.”