In a first of its kind Western Mass team Championship, where 11 teams met in a dual meet championship tournament, the best did rise to the top. Central and West Springfield were the one and two seed respectively and each had a first round bye before advancing through the field to get to the championship finals match. Central defeated Westfield 64-3 and then moved on to East Longmeadow where they were 37 – 18 winners. West Springfield defeated Amherst 39 – 18 and then beat Minnechaug to advance to the finals aginst Central. East Longmeadow and Minnnechaug wrestled in the consolation finals with East Longmeadow taking the third place honors.

The match between West Side and Central was easily the most exciting finals match in Western Mass since the inception of the dual meet team format. Both teams were top ten ranked teams in the state and the level of competiton was extremely high. The match started at 130 with West Sides Risan Umarov pinning Central's Mark Correa in 1:13. John Lebron was next up at 135 against Springfield Bui. John was down 6 -5 with 5 seconds to go when he shot on Bui and Bui backed up away from the shot and was called for stalling. Since he had already been warned, Lebron was awarded a point and the match went into overtime. Lebron won in double overtime 9-6 in a match that West Side had to have been counting on. This was a severe blow to West Side as Central was now moving into the heart of the lineup with momentum. Central swept 140 – 160 with decisions by Bemnet Banks, Manny Ocasio, Anthony Brooks and an overtime victory by Anthony Williams. The score was 15 – 6 in favor of Central and West Side was looking to their standout 171 pounder Ilii Cojacaru to get them back into the match. Estavon Gonzalez wrestled a tough match and managed to stay off his back to save a couple of points for the Golden Eagles. Cojacaru got the major victory with a 12 – 1 win to make the score 15 – 10. Next up was the 189 lb weight class. This weight class was the undoing of West Side. The Golden Eagles had won the toss at the start of the match and the Terriers had to declare first at 189. West Side sent out Slav Piserenko to the mat and the Golden Eagles bumped Nate Collins to 215 and sent Nate Shea out at 189. The strategy was to keep the damage down to a decision at 189 and then steal an important match at West Side's strength (215). Nate Shea did better than that by defeating Piserenko in OT 6-4. Nate Collins then won 6 points at 215 when West Side's Aslan Veysalov was disqualified for too many stall calls. The score was 24 – 10  going into 103 and Tyrique Dowdell did his job by majoring Brian Geng 14-1. Daniel Salgado then mathematically eliminated West Side by pinning Jake Pond in 3:13. The score was 34 – 14 with two matches remaining. West Side won the last two matches, but the contest was over. Central had won their sixth consecutive Western Mass title.

West Springfield wrestled hard. They have a strong team that deserves to be in the conversation when talking about top teams in the state. They are certainly capable of holding their own with the best teams and it's a shame that only one team may advance from the sectional tournament. West Side has shown themselves to be a top ten program and should be congratulated for the success that their program has seen in the last few years. I expect that the Central – West Side rivalry will continue on for many years to come.

I also want to congratulate Westfield High School for hosting a great tournament. Going into a tournament with 11 teams, everyone thought they were in for a long day. The staff in Westfield managed to get through the brackets and move onto the final matches at 3:00 PM. This made for a relatively short day that was appreciated by all. The school and booster programs represented themselves well and put a feather in their cap with a well run tournament.

The Golden Eagles will be moving on to the State Dual meet semi-finals on Wednesday. The team and location will be announced soon.

FYI – The longest streak of Western Mass titles is held by Agawam at 10. Ludlow was second with 6 consecutive titles. Central now has tied Ludlow for second place with their sixth consecutive title.