Rams wrestling quintet helps to make local sports history
February 14, 2024 at 11:17 p.m.
It didn't end the way they wanted it to, but even without the happy ending, five Ram wrestlers made scholastic sports wrestling history by being among the first grapplers to compete for a Section One championship this past weekend at the famed Westchester County Center in White Plains.
It was the first time the showcase event has been staged at "Westchester's Most Famous Arena," the local version of Madison Square Garden and now the post-season wrestling mecca for all four Section One counties—Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Dutchess.
Just getting there represented quite a feat, a survival of the fittest because only the top four Divisional finishers in 13 different weight classes qualified for what local wrestlers call "the meat grinder" that separates the best of the best.
The Rams Big 5
That means the Ram Big 5 Sectional qualifiers ranked with the elite in a variety of weight classes that included Port Chester's tri-captains Erik Coyt (108 pounds), Eduar Polanco (116) and Jaden Barbour (215), Nicholas Pereira (138) and eighth-grader Laila Builes (101), an international jiu jitsu age group champion against all comers (boys as well as girls) who was staging a comeback after missing almost a month of training due to illness but never made it into the ring because of the lingering after effects of a shoulder injury.
While all four Rams wrestled well, they all lost their first match while winning their first wrestle back yet failed to advance any further in the championships. The Sectional title was eventually won by a combined team representing Briarcliff, Byram Hills, Westlake and Valhalla.
Injuries, close calls and other complications aside, each Port Chester match had its ups and downs, none perhaps more so than what happened to Builes who never had a chance to step into the ring while already making school history as the first female to qualify for the Sectionals.
The shoulder pain
Builes (13-7 on the season) had injured her shoulder a week earlier in the Divisional qualifiers when she upset the third-seeded wrestler from John Jay/East Fishkill (JJEF) in the last 20 seconds. She finished the match but had to withdraw from the third place round while still qualifying for the Sectionals as one of the top four Divisional finishers.
"But we had to scratch Laila after the Sectional warmups because she tweaked her injured shoulder late in the week in practice," said Rams head coach Joe Facciola. "We wanted to see if she could test it out in warmups. Unfortunately, her shoulder was bothering her a lot."
So, rather than risk further injury, Builes, a Port Chester Middle Schooler, forfeited her matches against wrestlers from North Rockland and Mamaroneck, but will almost certainly be back to the Sectionals in the future.
Coyt (22-7), a senior, lost by a fall to a Horace Greeley contender in the first round in 1:55, beat his Ossining opponent by a fall in 1:25 in the first consolation round and was leading against his Yorktown rival with 20 seconds to go but gave up points and wound up losing in overtime in what turned out to be the Rams’ closest match of the day.
After the falls
Senior Polanco (25-12) lost by a fall in 5:25 to a Suffern wrestler in his first-round championship match, came back to win over a New Rochelle wrestler by a fall in 2:13 in the consolation first round only to fall in the second consolation round to a grappler from Mamaroneck.
Pereira (25-16), a senior, drew the fourth, fifth and sixth seed in the tournament, lost to the fourth seed from Mahopac by a fall in 1:21, beat the Ossining fifth seed in a major decision (13-2) in the first consolation round and then lost by a technical fall to the Greeley sixth seed in the consolation round two.
Barbour (25-14), the Rams’ two-way senior football co-captain and its best lineman, was on his way to beating the number seven seed for most of his first-round championship match but couldn't close it out in the decisive third period, losing by a 10-5 decision. He won the first consolation round by a fall in 3:44 over the rival from Somers/North Salem but lost to his Clarkstown South opponent by a fall in 0:51 in the consolation second round.
That's the way it all went down for the scrappy Ram qualifiers who became part of Westchester wrestling history by playing their role as part of the first Sectional qualifiers to wrestle in the County Center, the place where legends are made with a professional wrestling history that goes back to the first World Wide Wrestling days where once-upon-a-time wrestling greats like Bruno Sammartino, Ivan Putski and Andre the Giant strutted their stuff back in the day.
The historic back story
"Section 1 wrestling has a long history of producing some of the state's top grapplers," Westchester County Executive George Latimer said before the first match. "As Westchester's historic home for interscholastic athletics, the County Center is a perfect location to showcase this year's premier wrestling talent."
"This is an exciting opportunity for Section 1 wrestlers. Being able to bring our wrestling championships to the County Center is just another example of our enhancing the championship experience," said Todd Santabarbara, the Section 1 executive director.
In the past, the Sectionals have been held at Pace University and Purchase College as well as at local high schools such as Clarkstown South, Sleepy Hollow, Arlington and Hen Hud. So they have been a long time coming to the County Center.
By the numbers
And when they finally did, Port Chester was among the area's top 10 schools that sent qualifiers into the Sectionals with Arlington and Yorktown leading the way with 12, followed by JJ/EF with 11, Mahopac and Carmel (both with seven), Port Chester (five), Fox Lane and Clarkstown South (both four) and Mount Vernon (two). And that took some doing for the Rams because they were the only Port Chester team to have their season canceled during the COVID pandemic of 2020 due to the close contact nature of the sport. So Facciola has done quite a rebuilding job in not just keeping the sport alive but sending five qualifiers to the historic scholastic sports wrestling first at the County Center. He and the Rams Big 5 have much to be proud of.
In another numerical variation, for the first time since 2006, only the Section 1 champions will get to compete in the upcoming New York State Public High School Athletic Championships in Albany. That means Section 1 will only be allowed to send 13 representatives instead of the usual 26 with no wild cards or automatic qualifiers. So there will be no Rams qualifying this time around. Nor has anyone come close since lightweight Ivan Garcia, now a collegiate wrestling ace at SUNY Binghamton, lost the state championship by a single point. But not to worry. Laila Builes is a good bet to be there before she is done, barring injury.
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