Tigers’ Gress places at state championships

By Mike Wertman, Sports Writer Posted 25 February 2017 at 5:37 pm

Photo by Cheryl Wertman – Jeff Gress Jr., shown here in an earlier season match, led Lyndonville’s three member contingent of wrestlers at this weekend’s state championships with a fourth place finish.

Rebounding from an opening round loss, Lyndonville senior Jeff Gress Jr. (126) compiled a 4-1 record in the wrestle backs to earn fourth place honors at the state wrestling championships being held this weekend at the Times Union Center in Albany.

Gress dropped a 14-4 decision to second seeded CJ Walz from Central Valley Academy (Section III) in the opening round but rebounded strongly with a quick pin of 1:43 over Zach Roberts of Ogdenburg (Section X) to begin his comeback bid.

Keeping the momentum, Gress then scored consecutive decision wins of 7-5 over Satoshi Abe from Putnam Valley Haldane (Section 1), 3-2 over Zach Flaitz from Canisteo-Greenwood (Section 5) and 8-2 over Kevin Spann from Adirondack (Section III) to advance to the consolation finals.
Ironically, Gress bumped into Walz again in that battle for third place and this time dropped a narrow 10-9 decision.

“Jeffrey really wrestled tough,” said his coach and dad Jeff Gress. “We’ve known about CJ since his youth wrestling days. He’s been on the circuit and in fact he and Jeffrey are good friends.”
In going 4-2 on the weekend, Gress finishes the season at 50-9.

“He beat a lot of really good quality kids,” said Coach Gress.

Tigers senior Dustin Joy (145), who was seeded fourth, opened the tourney with a 6-4 win over Jonathan Fiebelkorn of Akron but the dropped a narrow 7-5 decision in the quarterfinals to Zachery Lawrence from Duanesburg (Section II).

Bouncing back, Joy opened the wrestle backs with a 4-0 win over Cody York from Hadley Lazerne Lake George but was then eliminated via a 7-4 loss to Daniel Bogie from Eagle Academy, the Bronx.

Joy finishes the season at 49-7.

Completing the Tigers three member contingent, senior Dustin Hinckley bounced back from an opening round pin loss in 2:55 to Morgan Seller from South Lewis (Section III) by scoring an 8-1 win over Joe DiForte from Petrides (PSAL) to open the wrestle back competition.

However, in the next round, he dropped a narrow 11-9decision to Fritz Scheffler from Tamarac (Section II) to bow out of the competition.

Hinckley finishes the season at 38-7.

“All three of them just wrestled awesome,” said Coach Gress. “Getting to the states is a perfect way for them to end their high school wrestling careers, They put little old Lyndonville on the map again.”