HEWLETT BULLDOGS WINS SPRIG GARDNER TWO DAY TOURNAMENT

With his wrestling team fresh off their third place finish at the always tough Long Beach, Battle at the Beach, Coach Stephen Jones was extremely confident of how his team was going to perform at the Sprig Gardner Tournament.

Unlike most wrestling tournaments, the Sprig Gardner runs over two days at two different high schools within the same district. Beginning Friday late afternoon, the Hewlett Bulldogs traveled to Bellmore JFK High School to begin the tournament. Unlike the Long Beach tournament where Coach Jones elected to only send 16 wrestlers, he and his coaching staff decided to increase the number of entries to provide some of his less experienced wrestlers with the opportunity to compete at the varsity level. His team did not disappoint as Hewlett finished the first night in fourth place with a majority of its athletes still alive to wrestle in the second day of competition.

As it turned out the strong showing in the first day set the stage for an extremely dominant performance on the second day held at W.C. Mepham High School. The Bulldogs sent seven of it’s wrestlers to the finals and with their success, the team came away from the tournament with a first place team finish against eight other high schools.

Needless to say, Coach Jones and the rest of his highly motivated coaching staff were extremely proud of it’s wrestlers and expects them to continue to improve as the season progresses. "I knew our boys were ready for the task at hand as they had trained hard leading up to this tournament." Coach Jones further shared, "These moments set the stage for a successful year for the team as a whole and provide them with strong incentives which we expect to carry them through the grind of the regular season."

Leading the team were once again Senior Captain’s Matt Kaminer (220) and Oran Revivo (138) who both secured first place finishes. Joining them in winning first place medals were Freshman Lucus Pincus (120) and Sophomore Michael Curiel (285). In addition placing second for the Bulldogs were Sophomore Owen Bachelder (132), Junior Andrew Kevelson (145) and Junior Paul Lane (285). Junior’s Charles Tsakh (152) and Steve Salerno (170) both placed third while Junior Tredd Smith (170)placed fourth. Both Senior Sal Bosco (182) and Sophomore Greg Bernal (182) both took sixth place.

The varsity will be attending the Wantagh duels on Saturday December 21st @ Wantagh HS. Coach Jones indicated that he is looking forward to seeing the teams supporters there this coming weekend.