ORLANDO — In Saturday’s Falcon Christmas Tournament at East River, five local wrestlers earned championships.
Neither Winter Park nor Wekiva, the two area teams in competition in the seven-team IBT, were able to run down the hosts for the top spot, but both walked away with two individual titles, as the Wildcats were second with 164.5 team points, 24 back of the winner, with Wekiva fourth (and a point out of 3rd) with 129.
Joey Parker (152) and Charlie Stewart (170) were the Winter Park champions, leading a group that also brought home four runnerup medals and seven additional top-4 placings.
Parker (7th in 3A) needed just 2:37 in his pool to take Pool A in the eight-man weight class, then added a fourth pin over a Wildcat teammate before handing Boone’s Evan Colon just his second loss of the season, with a pin in 2:35. Parker had a takedown and turn in the first period, then rode Colon for a second turn and eventual fall.
Stewart was second in Pool B at 170, with a loss by fall to East River’s Raul Rodriguez-Irizarry to go with two pins, but then knocked off the Pool A champ from Boone with a 9-3 win in the crossover semis. While Stewart gave up a large lead before the loss by pin in the pool dual, he cleaned things up in the final, reversing out from bottom and then turning Rodriguez-Irizarry for a pin of his own in 2:36.
Wekiva’s star seniors, Seth Galvin (145) and Holley Saintmelus (285), gave the Mustangs the biggest push in a day that saw them rack up six medals in all.
Galvin (9th in 3A) had a six-person full roundrobin in his weight class, bonus-pointing through the day with two pins over Colonial wrestlers, plus falls over Winter Park and Cocoa Beach, along with a 10-2 major in round 3 over the Wildcats’ Nate Flynn, the effective championship match. Galvin had takedowns in each period, with a quick turn in the third.
Saintmelus (also 9th in 3A) pinned his way through the tournament, with Pool A pins over a teammate, Boone, Winter Park and Colonial, then pinning East River’s Chase Eckman in 1:39 in the final, needing just one takedown 40 seconds earlier to run his way toward the pin.
A fifth area wrestler, St Johns resident Mario Del Vecchio, won the 113 title while competing for Cocoa Beach.
Delvecchio (5th in 1A) needed just 22 seconds to pin two different opponents, with 11-second falls over wrestlers from East River and Boone for his weight-class win.
Rankings are per https://kabrawrestling.com/rankings
Complete results from Saturday’s tournament can be found HERE.
North Florida Matmen 