Wakefield heads to Foxborough for state championship this weekend
By DAN PAWLOWSKI
GLOUCESTER — The Wakefield High wrestling team won the Div. 3 North Sectional title on Saturday at Gloucester High School. The Warriors, who last earned the D3N crown in 2022, piled up 220 points for 1st place. They were followed by Lynnfield/North Reading (197.5), Tewksbury (180.5), Triton (176) and Gloucester (174.5).
Wakefield had two individual champions, two 2nd place finishes and four 3rd place finishes to lead the way. They will send nine wrestlers to the Div. 3 state tournament this weekend at Foxborough High.
“It was a great, team win,” said head coach Ross Ickes who was also named the Div. 3 North Coach of the Year. “We really showed what kind of depth we have.”
That depth across weight classes is something Ickes and his staff try to develop throughout the season. Wakefield always has a handful of wrestlers ranked at the top of their weight classes — no doubt a necessity in order to rack up big points — but often times, it’s the competitors beyond those rankings that need to step up in order for the team to win a championship.
Multiple Warriors finished higher than those pre-tournament rankings, none more impressively than Sean Callanan who joined Aydin Lamb as individual champs.
Callanan was ranked No. 4 at 157 and defeated the No. 5, No. 1 and No. 3 ranked competitors.
“The best No. 4 in the state,” half-joked Ickes about the senior. “He battled through it. We felt like we had the best wrestler in the bracket and he proved it.”
Callanan met No. 1 ranked Joe Allen of Gloucester in the semifinals, eventually earning a pin after 3 periods and nearly six minutes of action. A reversal followed by a near fall in the 3rd officially turned the tables for Callanan, who went on to beat David Glynn of Lynnfield/North Reading in the finals by a 16-11 decision. Glynn started off with 6 points on a takedown and near fall but Callanan responded in the 2nd with three takedowns before going the distance for gold.
Lamb continued his terrific season by making quick work in the 132 bracket. The junior, who improved to 41-2 on the season and hasn’t lost since the Lowell Holiday Tournament in December, kept it rolling with two pins in the quarterfinals and semifinals to set up a No. 1 vs. No. 3 matchup in the finals. Lamb stayed in control during the finals, defeating Excel Academy’s Juan Murillo in an 8-0 major decision. It looked like a mismatch in the box score, but that’s more in part due to Lamb’s pedigree.
“Murillo was a very tough opponent,” said Ickes of the Excel Academy star who has wrestled well against Wakefield before in the postseason. “Aydin put him on his back late which gave us a lot of bonus points for the major decision. That was something we wanted to focus on. Those bonus points helped put us over the top.”
Wakefield’s two 2nd place finishes belonged to seniors Kip King at 285 and Jimmy Fabbri at 150. They were both agonizingly close to victories in the finals but came up just short.
King’s finals bout, a No. 1 vs. No. 2 ranked matchup against Gloucester’s Chris Laine, came down to a coin flip in overtime which is what happens when a tied match goes to a 7th period.
Whoever wins the flip gets to choose positioning and usually picks the bottom so they can try to escape for 1 point and the win which is what happened for Laine, winning by a 4-3 decision overall. King had two quick pins in the quarterfinals and the semifinals.
The potential for championship rematches are always in play but Ickes especially felt that King and Laine could be due for a rematch at states this weekend.
Fabbri, who has typically competed at 138 this year, stepped up to wrestle 150 even though he was well below that number on Saturday. Even still, Fabbri, the No. 2 ranked wrestler in the division, made it to the finals after two decisions and a hard-earned pin against No. 3 Jake Miles of Triton to meet top-ranked Anthony Murawski of Gloucester in the finals.
“He’s been a Warrior for us all year,” said Ickes of Fabbri who came close to beating Murawski but a late takedown in overtime finally gave the Fisherman his trophy.
The fact that Wakefield came so close to four 1st-place finishes meant that their top wrestlers certainly came to play. They weren’t the only ones.
The four 3rd place finishers — Jason Correia (113), Michael Barry (120), Ryan Hogan (165) and Ahmed Othman (215) — officially sealed the title for Wakefield.
Correia, a sophomore, wasn’t the top pick to qualify for states at 113. He didn’t care.
“He’s a grinder who loves to wrestle,” said Ickes.
Correia had a pin in round one and took down Watertown’s Christian Barrett by a major decision in the quarterfinals to set up a matchup with No. 1 ranked Jack Lightfoot of Tewksbury. Lightfoot ended up winning the bracket but Correia bounced back with two more rematches, pinning Pentucket’s Damian Houle for the second time and pinning Barrett (2:42) in a rematch for 3rd place.
Othman, a senior, also had a 4-seed and a similar route to bronze with an 8-3 decision over No. 5 Zack Morse in the quarterfinals before eventual champion, No. 1 Manuel Mengata of Tewksbury won a semifinal matchup against Othman. Othman earned another pin to set up a rematch with Morse which Othman won again, this time on a 10-2 major decision.
Barry, a junior, took 3rd at 120. The 3rd-ranked wrestler in his bracket, Barry fell to No. 2 Jisup Shin of Weston in the semifinals but fought back to the 3rd-place match where he defeated No. 4 Jayden Chadwick of Gloucester in a 15-2 major decision.
Hogan, a senior, has done a terrific job of stepping into the 165 bracket with Jaden Fullerton (44-4) out for Wakefield. Hogan, ranked 4th in the bracket, beat No. 5 Cooper Zaneski of Pentucket in a thrilling quarterfinal in which Zaneski was ahead on the scoreboard before Hogan’s takedown in the 2nd period.
Hogan put up an impressive fight against eventual champion Cam Arya of Lynnfield/North Reading in the semifinals. The two were deadlocked in the 2nd before Arya got a pin in the 3rd after a grueling, five-minute bout. Hogan also made it back to the 3rd place bout where he rematched Zaneski and earned a pin in 1:01.
Joining Callanan, Lamb, Fabbri, King, Barry, Hogan, Othman and Correia at states will be Kevin Fabbri who earned an alternate spot after a 5th place finish at 106, going 3-2 on the day.
Ickes believes the Warriors will be in the mix on Friday and Saturday in Foxborough. In addition to strong North teams like Tewksbury, the reigning D3 champs, Wakefield will also be looking out for deep squads like Ashland, Wayland and Foxborough.
Wayland won the D3 Central crown last weekend trailed closely by Ashland.
The home team, Foxborough, won the D3 South title followed by Scituate.