Wrestling: Tuckers take a bite out of Bayport-Blue Point
TUCKERS 47, PHANTOMS 25
A Mattituck/Greenport wrestler may have been bitten by his opponent, but it was the Tuckers who took a bite out of Bayport-Blue Point in a much-anticipated Suffolk County League VII match on Wednesday.
Lucas Webb’s win by disqualification over Bayport-Blue Point’s Joe Palma at 120 pounds provided a 10-point swing in the Tuckers’ favor, helping them to a 47-25 victory in their own gym.
Palma was leading, 13-5, and seemingly on the way to a win. He was accused, however, of biting Webb during the waning seconds of their match. After the buzzer sounded, ending the contest, both coaches, Rich Reilly of Bayport-Blue Point and Cory Dolson of Mattituck/Greenport, had heated words for the referee. Then, following a delay, the referee walked to the center of the mat and raised Webb’s arm, giving him the win by disqualification.
After the match, Webb, a freshman, showed a reporter two scratch-like marks on his hand by the base of the thumb and the forefinger that he said were the result of the bite.
“I guess he got a little mad,” said Webb.
Asked if he thought Palma had intentionally bit him, Webb said, “I felt it might have been purposely because I felt the bite, but you never know.”
A request to interview Palma was declined by Reilly, who said he would file a protest over the referee’s decision.
“Sometimes a guy’s arms do make their way into a guy’s mouth, and it can be incidental,” Reilly said. “It can be unintentional. Nobody saw it, not even the referee. The referee’s not seeing it, how are we making that call?”
Dolson, however, said he did see it.
“The kid bit him, that’s the bottom line,” the Tuckers coach said. “The teeth marks were deep. … It was a blatant bite.”
At the same time, Dolson said he was glad the Tuckers (8-1, 2-0) won by more than the 10 points the controversial match represented. “You don’t want to win that way, bottom line,” he said. “Lucas lost the match. The kid outwrestled him. He major-decisioned him. The kid earned his [13] points. He should have got them. Unfortunately for that kid, he made a bad decision.”
The fourth bout on the card gave Mattituck/Greenport a 16-6 lead.
“Would it have swayed the match?” Reilly said. “Who knows? They were the fourth match of the night. Anything could happen. It definitely had a momentum swing for us.”
The 120-pound bout was undoubtedly the most talked about contest of the day, but the most exciting was at 132 pounds. Justin Underwood of Bayport-Blue Point was trailing by 4-2 to Ryan Bergen before he scored 2 points on a reversal in the final second of the third period to force overtime. Twenty-five seconds into the extra session, Underwood won on a takedown for a 6-4 decision.
Mattituck/Greenport seniors Tomasz Filipkowski and Chris Baglivi were their dominant selves. Filipkowski, wrestling at 170 pounds, pinned Christian Engel at 4:27. Baglivi pinned Chris Teague at 1:52 of their 195-pound match.
Luke Bokina (99 pounds), Brian Pelan (126) and Christian Angelson (152) also recorded pins for Mattituck/Greenport. Bokina stopped Sean Leahy at 2:32, Pelan pinned Liam Maloney at 3:16, and Angelson finished his struggle against Dario Magnoli at 4:00.
Decisions went Mattituck/Greenport’s way, too. James Hoeg (12-0 over Jake Palma at 113), Bobby Becker (9-1 over Matt Ceglio at 138) and Anthony Howell (4-2 over Mike Sweeney at 160) walked off the mat as winners.
“We went out and we did what we had to do,” said Webb.
Austin Kruger won Bayport-Blue Point’s first points of the day with a pin of T. J. Beebe at 5:38 of their encounter at 106 pounds.
Ryan Hake, who like Underwood was a county champion last season for the Phantoms, showed his quality with a 12-2 decision over Andre Vega at 145 pounds.
Bayport-Blue Point’s other wins came from Jon Campanelli (182), Matt Doty (220) and Paul Dolce (285). Campanelli secured a pin against Sal Loverde at 3:40, Doty scored a 3-0 win over Connor Andersen, and Dolce made a third-period point stand for a 1-0 result against Nick Tesiny.
Mattituck/Greenport was facing a strong team in Bayport-Blue Point (3-2, 1-1), the Suffolk Division II champion for the past three years as well as the defending league champion.
“We did a pretty solid job all the way through the lineup,” Dolson said. “I think it gave them confidence because Bayport, they’ve been a team that we just couldn’t beat. We hadn’t beaten them in a few years, and a lot of these guys on the team hadn’t beaten them. I think winning at least gives them that sense of belief that they could win, and I think that’s important.”
