Wrestling Rams finish fifth in season's first tournament

Builes named frosh Most Outstanding Wrestler

December 12, 2024 at 12:08 a.m.

Port Chester High School lightweight Laila Builes went 5-0 at the Vin Nicita Invitational Dual Meet Tournament on Saturday, Dec. 7 in Harrison and was voted tourney freshman Most Outstanding Wrestler. She poses here with Vin Nicita, the former Harrison wrestling coach for whom the tournament is named. (Courtesy photo of Joe Facciola)

Depending on your point of view, Port Chester's wrestling team opened their winter season with one of those glass half full or glass half empty kinds of tournament performances—but either way, they proved they didn't have a glass chin.

Bottom line: The wrestling Rams finished fifth out of 10 competing schools in the Vin Nicita Invitational Dual Meet Tournament last Saturday (12/7) in Harrison.

But they could easily have finished a lot higher than 3-2 on the day in their first tournament of the new season. Because they lost to eventual tourney winner Pleasantville by just two points, blew an early 23-6 lead against Eastchester yet still managed to blow out East Ramapo, Irvington and Tappan Zee, the team they beat for fifth place.

Ups and downs

As those scores indicate, a lot of good and bad things happened.

Starting with the good:

*Freshman lightweight Laila Builes, who has won international age-group judo championships and is considered a strong contender to win Port Chester's first state championship in any sport, went 5-0 on the day, with four pins and a forfeit and was voted tourney freshman MOW (Most Outstanding Wrestler).

*Senior light heavyweight Nicholas Pereira, a strong All-Section contender, went 5-0 with four wins and one major decision while junior lightweight Carlos Palma finished 4-1 with two pins and two forfeits.

*Senior light heavyweight Eduar Polanco, another All-Section candidate, finished 4-1 with two pins, a major decision and one tech fall.

Falling up next

But it is that tech fall that will motivate him for the rest of the season because it means he lost by a differential of 15 points in the last match of the day against Pleasantville, a match the Rams lost by just two points 35-33.

What made that loss even harder to swallow was the fact that the Rams went into the final leading 33-30 yet wound up losing to the eventual tournament winner, according to Rams head coach Joe Facciola.

But Facciola said that strong team effort against Pleasantville established the fact that Port Chester will be a strong contender because of wins in various weight categories including Pereira winning in the 160-pound weight class with a fall in 3:10; Justin Zhagui (285) coming away with a 5-1 decision; Builes (108) winning with a fall in 1:08; Alexander Alvarez (116) with a fall in 1:01 while David Escobar (152), Andres Sanchez (160), Jonathan Tenesaca (190, Jacob Lopez (215) and William  Sanan (124) all lost close matches.

And so it went with strong beat downs against Irvington (67-6), East Ramapo (66-12) and Tappan Zee (53-22) with other previously unmentioned Rams flexing their muscles by winning in various weight categories including Fabian Avalos (131), Daniel Martello (145) and Evan Yanez (285).

In brief, the Rams showed depth up and down the lineup. And they look to do even better next time out Saturday (12/14) at 9 a.m. in a meet against multiple schools at Rye High School. And you can bet that Facciola has them primed to finish way better than fifth because he isn't a half full kind of guy.