Section 3 Mat Stories
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Three champs are enshrined at SLU

12/13/2015

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The years do pass. On Oct. 10, I traveled to Canton to watch three former Section 3 stars get inducted into St. Lawrence University's Athletic Hall of Fame: Baldwinsville's Pat Conners and Fulton's Mark Shortsleeve and Lelan Rogers.

Conners was NCAA Division III champion at heavyweight in 1988, helping the Saints win the team title. He also played football. He is a teacher, coaching football and wrestling for many years at South Jefferson. He was accompanied by family, including his mother, Norma, former Section 3 secretary.

Shortsleeve was 1986 champ at 134 pounds. He lives in Parish and works for Usherwood Technology in Syracuse.

Rogers was the 1985 champion at 190 and also played football and lacrosse at SLU, before transferring to Syracuse University, where he wrestled and played lacrosse. He is an assistant men's lacrosse coach at SU.

They were three of six NCAA champions inducted that day. The others were Dr. Tod Northrup from Waverly-4 (1983 champ at 167), Phil Lanzatella from McQuaid-5 (1982 champ at 190) and Jason Bovenzi of East Rochester-5 (1993 champion at 190, then 1995 champion at 190 for Ithaca College).

They all joined three national champs inducted in previous years: the late Ron Pelligra (CBA '72, the 1976 heavyweight champ), Mitch Brown (Williamsville South-6 '74, the 1977 champ at 158) and Mike Conners, Baldwinsville '80, the heavyweight champ in 1984.

St. Lawrence dropped wrestling after 1994-95. Its alumni in the sport include Isadore Demsky '39, better known as actor and writer Kirk Douglas.
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Summer breeds winter warriors

12/13/2015

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Jack Buell was a traveling guy last summer, and he was not alone.

The Sherburne-Earlville senior (pictured with Canastota's E.J. Sampo) drove the back roads of Central New York every weekday to practice sessions in Canastota or Chittenango for the Mohawk Valley Wrestling Club, in Verona for the Proper-ly Trained Club, or in Ithaca with the Finger Lakes club. He put a lot of miles on his car for the chance to improve, as he aimed for national competition and then the 2015-16 high school season, which is now underway.

Buell placed third at 195 pounds in last year's Division II state tournament, after winning the sectional title. He thinks he could have done better at the state level.

"I feel that I could wrestle to my potential, and I didn't in the quarterfinals," he said one July evening, between workouts at Todd Cutrie's gym in Chittenango. He said summer was not so much about learning new moves as honing old ones.

Joining him at his various workouts were wrestlers from 30 to 50 miles away. Every spring and summer, high school competitors drill with clubs and in open tournaments, believing that winter's success comes from off-season work.

Mohawk Valley was the only club for many years, but now there are others from Fulton to Phoenix to Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, where the Proper-ly Trained club serves as memorial to Kasey Proper, a former V-V-S wrestler who died in 2013, Clubs vary in cost, style and travel opportunities.

Watertown's Zach Hunt traveled with his father, Todd, to MVWC to practice, just as Todd himself had drilled with the club in the 1980s. Zach said he joined so he could travel overseas and gain more skill at freestyle before his senior year. Todd Hunt said the club helped him excel as a wrestler in 1989 for Watertown and go on to SUNY Morrisville.

The club sessions at V-V-S had boys as young as 5 working out next to teenagers bound for college. Trevor Allard, former Mexico state champion headed to Bloomsburg University, said he did not belong to a club the summer before his senior year, preferring to work with a tree service, but decided to try freestyle during the 2015 summer.

​Allard worked out with his brother Tylor, a rising senior for Mexico.

On a nearby mat, Camden brothers Chad and Brett Finch took turns shooting on each other. Chad had just graduated and was headed for the University of Florida, his wrestling career done, but said he was there because he liked it and wanted to help Brett, a senior now, improve. The drive of 40 miles each way, they said, was worth it.
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    Scott Conroe

    Author, photographer, editor of journalism, books and, more recently, fiction.

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