On Saturday, January 19, 2019, Herricks hosted its 24th Annual Highlander’s Tournament at the Herricks Community Center. Teams that entered the tournament included Edgemont and Phelham from Westchester County, Hempstead, Jericho and Valley Stream North from Nassau, and Ward Melville from Suffolk County.
The entire Herricks team was present and ready to work. After seven hours of wrestling, the team crowned three champions, Joe Manfredi (99lbs), Marcus Osieczkowski (132lbs) and Sal Puliafico (126lbs) who beat the fifth ranked wrestler in Nassau County, Tommy Yanes, from Hempstead in the finals.
All the Highlander placewinners were as follows:
99lbs (Champ)- Joseph Manfredi
106lbs (2nd) Kumel Arif
113lbs (2nd)- Joseph Mattei
120lbs (2nd)- Quinn Gilhooly
120lbs (3rd)- Aaron Cho
126lbs (Champ)- Sal Puliafico
132lbs (Champ)- Marcus Osieczkowski
132lbs (2nd-JV) – Rayan Abdolahzadi
138lbs (3rd-JV) – Justin Chin
152lbs (2nd)- Cole LaRock
170lbs (2nd)- Daniel Mattei
220lbs (4th)- Nate Dowd
285lbs (5th)-Ash Multani
On Saturday, January 26, 2019, Herricks hosted its annual Ground Hog Festival at the Herricks Community Center, which ends the regular season. This event gives wrestlers the opportunity to wrestle extra matches to fulfill the maximum number before the county qualifier. In addition to selected grapplers from Herricks, Wantagh and Valley Stream North also attended the event.
Results for the Higherlanders were as follows:
113lbs – Kumel Arif won by tech fall
120lbs – Quinn Gilhooly won two matches by tech fall
120lbs – Aaron Cho won two matches by pin
120lbs – Joseph Mattei won by pin
120lbs – John Pappas lost two matches
132lbs – Marcus Osieczkowski won by pin
138lbs – Justin Chin lost one match
152lbs – Cole LaRock won by pin
195lbs – Matt Polo won by pin
285lbs – Ash Multani won by pin
The Ground Hog Festival marks the end of the regular season. Herricks went 3-4 in dual meet competition and had many successes in the various tournaments entered over the last two months. Herricks had a young team this year with no seniors on its roster. The team gained valuable experience as the season progressed which will hopefully result in positive results as they enter their qualifying county tournament on February 2 and 3 at Mineola High School and the county tournament on February 9 and 10 at LIU Post.