​Publication: The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press
By Cailin RileyThere is the pressure to win, and then there is the pressure to pin. For wrestlers, the difference between them can be intense. But Westhampton Beach sophomores Grant Skala and Jack Santora rose to the latter challenge in their team’s match with Newfield—the 13th ranked team in Suffolk County—at the Cory Hubbard Duals in Westhampton on Saturday.

Skala (99 pounds) and Jack Santora (106) were the last two Hurricanes to take the mats in their team’s bout with Newfield, ranked three places ahead of the Hurricanes in the county team standings. Facing a 35-24 deficit going into those matches, they knew the only way their team could win is if they both pinned their opponents (a pin in worth six points, a technical fall five points, a major decision four points, and a decision three points). Both Santora and Skala were favored to win their matches, according to Westhampton Beach head coach Paul Bass, but he said the strategy for pinning an opponent is often different, and requires both skill and savvy on the part of the wrestler.

The young wrestlers delivered. Skala pinned Nick Roethel in 1:55, while Santora delivered the match-clinching mat slap over Andrew Gabb with just seconds left in the second period.

The Hurricanes finished as the runner-up in their host tournament, losing, 42-39, to Patchogue/Medford, ranked 10th in Suffolk County. In addition to the win over Newfield, the Hurricanes also beat Holy Trinity, 67-18.

Bass said that while he always wants to win, he was about as happy as he could have been with a loss after facing Patchogue/Medford.

“At the end of that match, I was the first one to cheer,” he said. “That’s what high school sports is supposed to be. You had two sets of fans going crazy the whole time, kids laying it on the line, and it was back and forth, and it came down to [Will Zaffuto] wrestling really tough against an All-League kid and losing, 7-4, but they just battled the whole time.”

Over the course of the tournament, Skala was 3-0 with a pin; Santora was 2-0 with two pins; Jay Montagna (126 pounds) was 3-0 with two pins; and Jackson Hulse (160 pounds) was 3-0 with two pins, beating Newfield’s Frank Micari, ranked fourth in the county in his weight class, in a 7-0 decision. For that effort, Montagna was chosen as his team’s Most Outstanding Wrestler for the day. Larry Citarelli (170/182 pounds) was 3-0 with a pin; Hunter Burling (182/195) was 2-1, suffering his first loss of the season, an OT defeat at the hands of Newfield. Liam McIntyre, ranked first in the county at 195 pounds, was 3-0 with two pins, wrestling both at 195 and 220.
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Publication: The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press
Dec 30, 2018 8:16 PM
By Drew Budd

​Just wrestle.

It's a simple phrase that the Westhampton Beach wrestling team has started to use this season, but in this day and age where there is a lot more going than just the wrestling on the varsity high school stage, it's something that can be easily overlooked by teen-aged grapplers. There are a core of Hurricanes who have taken the saying to heart, and it showed this past week at the Sal DiFazio Holiday Tournament at Half Hollow Hills East High School that ran across two days, Thursday and Friday, December 27 and 28. 

For the second year in a row, Westhampton Beach won the tournament with 279 total points, 40 points ahead of host Hills East and 92 points ahead of Bellmore JFK. What's different about this year's tournament victory than last year's, Westhampton Beach head coach Paul Bass said, is that he didn't have nearly as many wrestlers in this year's tournament, due to various reasons, from a few wrestlers being away on the holiday break, to injuries and illnesses. Only 20 of the 38 wrestlers that make up the Hurricanes made the trip to Hills East, and of those 20, 14 placed in the top four of their weight classes. Six of those wrestlers became champions and another was runner-up.

"They're really starting to buy in to our philosophy of just wrestle. Forget all of the scores, forget about all of the rankings, forget about all the drama that's involved in wrestling and just go out there and wrestle," Bass explained. "And it wasn’t just about the results at this tournament. This was a Christmastime tournament. All I care about is getting the kids some good matches. It was how we did it. It was a dominating train coming down the tracks, and it started at 99 pounds."

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By Cailin Riley As a junior last season, Larry Citarelli did not win a single varsity match for the Westhampton Beach wrestling team. Last week, he provided the clinching victories in two dual meets against two of the stronger teams in League V.

Citarelli took the mat against Jon Fitzsimmons for the final bout of the night in Friday’s tilt with Islip—a team that was ranked fifth in the county in the preseason—with meet tied at 32-32. With 25 seconds left in the 182-pound match, Citarelli scored a takedown to break a 1-1 tie, securing a 3-1 win over Fitzsimmons and the victory for his Hurricanes squad. Two nights earlier, in the third-to-last matchup of the night, Citarelli beat Connor Owenburg of Sayville in a 6-1 decision that put Westhampton Beach up by 13 points, thus guaranteeing the Canes would win even if Sayville had pins in the final two matches, in what was ultimately a 41-30 victory. Like Islip, Sayville was also ranked in the top 15 in the county in the preseason—the Hurricanes were as well—and Westhampton Beach head coach Paul Bass knew his team would be in for two tough matches early in the season against those squads. The key to victory in both, he said, is part of what is becoming a pattern for the Hurricanes so far this year.

“We had some [individual] matches we should have won, but in the end, the other guys picked them up,” Bass said. “That’s what dual meets are all about; picking each other up and wrestling for each other, and these guys are doing that as well as anybody. In every match, something bad has happened, but the guys keep stepping up.”

Citarelli is just one example, Bass said. The senior’s performance is not an exception, but rather seems to be the rule for the team this year. Bass pointed out that, of his 15 regular starters this season, only two are returning All-League wrestlers and only one other had a winning record last season. The rest of the starting lineup this year either was not in the starting lineup last season or had a losing record.

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