On February 11th, the wrestling team celebrated their seven seniors with a huge win over New Jersey City. They ended the night with a 27-12 victory in their only home match of the season. Six out of the ten Cortland wrestlers came out victorious in the winning effort.
This match happened to be the Red Dragons second competition of the day as they defeated SUNY Oswego that morning. Going into their match against New Jersey City their record stood at 5-7.
Prior to the home match, seniors Jaden Datz, Steven Gazzillo, Dylan Houseknecht, Richard Munoz, Amos Rivera, Vinnie Santilli, and Brian Torres were recognized for their dedication to the program during their time at Cortland. The atmosphere was exciting as friends gathered to support the seniors in their last home match as a Red Dragon.
Senior Vinnie Santilli says, “Having my parents at my last college home match was a great feeling, I wish we had more home matches though”.
Senior, Brian Torres won his second match of the day with a pin while senior, Vinnie Santilli also won his second match with a 10-2 decision. Seniors Jaden Datz and Steven Gazillo fell short in their match against New Jersey City after coming up victorious earlier that day.
Junior, Chris bold also came out victorious with a 6-0 blowout over his opponent along with freshman, Angelo Centrone with a 25-10 victory.
New Jersey City took an early lead and managed to stay close while the score was only 13-12 with three matches left to go. The Red Dragons powered through and ended up winning those last matches to end the night 27-10 and improve their record to 6-7.
Cortland takes on Ithaca next and then has multiple wrestlers competing at the Mideast Futures tournament. The Red Dragons then move forward to the NCAA Mideast Regionals which will begin February 24th and end the 25th.
Santilli adds “At the end of the day I’m proud of my team and am excited for the postseason”.