Mount Greylock Wins League Opener at Taconic

PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- Five different wrestlers earned a pin to lead the Mount Greylock wrestling team to a 48-29 win over Taconic on Tuesday evening.

 

The Mounties opened the night strong with a pair of pins at 106 pounds and 113 pounds, where Adam Cohen and Robert Sutter each got off the mat in less than a minute.

 

A 12-0 Mounties lead then ballooned to 18-0 when Mount Greylock (1-0 Berkshire County) picked up the first of two forfeit wins on the evening.

 

"We're still dealing with some forfeits," Taconic coach Jeremy Tetreault said. "We're spotting some points. But it's growing.

 

"We have a small team. ... We're a good tournament team. We just won the Franklin Tech tournament on Saturday. But it's hard to compete in duals when you're not putting guys out there. It's hard to win when you're giving up [12] points.

 

"But I can't blame it on that. They beat us on the mat as well. We have some stuff to work on, and the kids know it."

 

Taconic (0-2) earned its first points when Nick Bailey earned a technical fall in the third period of his match at 126 to make it 18-5.

 

And Mason Papiro got a pin at 132 to draw Taconic within seven points.

 

But Mount Greylock scored the next 21 points with a forfeit at 138, a hard-fought 7-1 win by Travis Hilchey at 145 and pins by Cayman Mead (152) and Devin Pelletier (160) to make it 39-11.

 

Tyler Klose and Austin Houghtaling picked up back-to-back pins to keep Taconic in the match at 39-23 with three matches left.

 

Mount Greylock's Alex Griffis put the match away with a 31-second pin at 195, giving his team an insurmountable 22-point lead.

 

Hunter Abriel battled to an 8-5 win at 220 for Mount Greylock's final points before David Jones picked up a win on an injury forfeit in the heavyweight class.

 

"The kids wrestled alright," Mount Greylock coach Ray Miro said. "We had a rough weekend [at the Pathfinder Duals]. We didn't do a lot of things well. But we came back and had a good practice yesterday, and I think some of the things came in.

 

"We were better at hand control, better moving off the bottom and better on trying to finish bad takedowns. We like to teach perfect positions, but these are high school kids, and they're going to get into bad positions. So you have to work out of those bad positions.

 

"It was a league meet, so it was a nice win."

 

Mount Greylock travels to Fair Haven, Vt., for the Fair Haven Duals on Saturday, while Taconic heads south to Monument Mountain for the Berkshire Holiday Tournament.

 

More photos from this match to come.