Wrestling lows, lax highs when singling out sports achievers from P.C. and Blind Brook

April 3, 2024 at 9:42 p.m.

By MICHAEL IACHETTA | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment
Freelance Reporter

Here's a good news/bad news local story involving the latest scholastic sports accolades with Port Chester once again getting no respect while Blind Brook scored once.

The bad news first:

The Section 1 Wrestling Hall of Fame (HOF) is ushering in its newest class of 11 inductees—the largest induction class since its inception in 1988.

The new class includes multiple-time Section 1 title winners and All-State finishers Pat Beckley of Arlington, Sleepy Hollow's Mike Martinez, Horace Greeley's Greg Einfrank, Ardsley's Michael Murray, Pleasantville's Michael Esteves, North Rockland's Marc Zurla, and Fox Lane's Joe Grippi and Sam Speno.

The missing link

But Port Chester's Ivan Garcia, arguably the Rams’ greatest wrestler ever, is notably missing from that elite list even though he meets the criteria exemplified by all the other inductees.

Garcia was a four-time sectional champion, multiple All-State finisher who made the All-State All-Star Team for four consecutive years, finished one point short of winning the school's first ever state championship, was an Eastern States championship finalist and finished with a four-year dual meet record of 189-24. He has gone on to a stellar wrestling career at SUNY Binghamton where he has beaten wrestlers from schools such as Harvard, Penn, Long Island University and Hofstra, among others.

Yet Garcia is outside looking in when the HOF dinner is scheduled to take place Apr. 18, a Thursday, at 6 p.m. at the Harrison Meadows Country Club.

Maybe next year.

The good news: Blind Brook's Seth Low was named as one of the top players to watch in Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley on Lohud's list of the area's best lacrosse players with Low and the Trojans looking to repeat as league champions after winning the school's first ever playoff game last year. Low, a long-stick midfielder and defensive ace, has an LAX athletic scholarship to Muhlenberg near Allentown in Pennsylvania (as does his Blind Brook co-captain Michael Berman-Annunziata, an All-League attacker who had 100 career assists last year and won an athletic scholarship to Clark University in Worcester, Mass.).


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