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Pomfret School
Wrestling
In the Western New England Wrestling Tournament Pomfret took fifth out of 21 teams, had three individual champions and 8 total place-winners out of the 10 who wrestled.
Captains, Tomo Okamoto ’11 and RJ LaBeef ’11, each pinned the returning champion in his respective weight class in the finals. Here is the breakdown of the place-winners: Devon MarcAurele ’14 - Champion - Seeded second, Devon dominated his way to the finals by pinning his opponents. Then he faced the top seed in the finals and controlled the entire match, ending with a convincing 6-1 victory. Tomo Okamoto ’11 - Champion - Also seeded second, Tomo had a long road to the finals, as he had to beat a returning champion from another weight class in the semi-finals before his heroics in the finals against the top seed and returning champ.RJ LaBeef ’11 - Champion - In addition to being named the outstanding wrestler of the tournament, RJ collected the most pins trophy. In four matches, RJ wrestled for a total of less than three minutes.
Yugin Lam ’13 - 3rd place - Seeded 5th, Yugin was somewhat of an unknown going into the tournament, but he sure is known now. He was convincing in all of his wins, and he was competitive in his loss to the Suffield wrestler who eventually won the weight class.
Alastair Hewitt ’12 - 3rd place - Also seeded 5th, Alastair had a lot of work to do in a tough weight class. His good efforts all season paid off, as Alastair got stronger as each match progressed.
Brian Lawler ’11 - 4th place - Seeded 7th, Brian wrestled five tough matches over the course of the day. He competed for every second of every match and, in my opinion, gave the team a good spark with his efforts. John Dean ’11 - 4th place - Seed 5th, John had a lot of different kinds of matches. He did a nice job keeping the match close against the eventual champ; and one of his wins in the consolations, by a score of 12-11, came as a result of his scoring three points in the last 10 seconds of the match with an escape and a takedown. Adam Cohan ’11 - 5th place - Adam ended his Pomfret career with a win, by pin; and earlier in the tournament he was able to pin an opponent who had pinned him in the regular season. LaBeef was voted outstanding wrestler of the tournament.
Hyde
Wrestling
Last weekend Hyde-Woodstock scored 159 team points and took third out of 12 teams in the Northern New England Invitational wrestling tournament.
Marcos Mercado ’13 faced some tough opponents, and lost by decision after the clock ran out as he was pinning his seeded opponent from Worcester. He wrestled back for 3rd place and went 3-1 for the day. Peter Markham ’12 returned after missing some time on the mat, but put up a good fight for the day, ending with a 2-2 record. Jae Kang Lee ’11 was one of the “Dark Horses” in the competition and opened the day beating the #4 seed in the tournament. After losing to the #1 seed, he wrestled back to win one more and lose in the consolation finals, thus earning a 4th place medal for the day. Our usual 135lb wrestler was not with us, so Graham Davidson ’10 rose to the call and wrestled very well. He went 3-2 for the day and earned a 4th place medal. This was his best performance so far this season, and he truly stepped up when the team needed him most. Chris Hershberg ’12 faced a very tough bracket and went 1-2 on the day, but his first win helped our total team point count. Kenrick Vincent ’12 brought everything he had to this tournament, and although he did not make it to the consolation finals, he earned an “Outstanding Effort” medal which every team received to give to the wrestler that showed true effort. He went 3-2 for the day and wrestled his best match of the season against the #2 seeded wrestler, nearly beating him. Mac McGuire ’11 went 3-2 on the day in the most competitive and difficult weight bracket of the tournament. He ended with a 4th place medal, but set himself apart from the competition. He will be a dangerous factor in the upcoming Class A tournament. Addison Wheat ’11 was another “Dark Horse” in the competition and pulled off a series of tough wins earning him a 4th place medal. His record on the day was 3-2 after losing his first match of the day against the #2 seeded wrestler. Wrestling back and earning a medal is far more difficult than winning all your matches up to the finals. He also filled a void that our team had for the day, and stepped up to the challenge. Zack Guidice ’12 went 3-2 for the day, but fell just shy of making it to the consolation finals. He wrestled tough in a new weight class after working hard to get down to 171lbs. Quincy Falk ’12 was a newcomer to the 189lb. class. He filled the slot Guidice left behind, and worked hard as a JV wrestler stepping up to a varsity tournament. He won his first varsity match of the season and ended the day with a 1-2 record. The real excitement of the day surrounded senior Brian Sanz ’11, who emerged in the finals championship bracket after wrestling some solid matches in the first and second round of the tournament. He was seeded #3 in the tournament, but defied these expectations and came out on top. His final match went all 6 minutes, and he won the championship in a 9-6 decision over his opponent in the 215lb weight class.
Pomfret School
Varsity Basketball
Pomfret 70 Bancroft 56
Feb. 9: The Boys took on a scrappy Bancroft team and managed to win our 3rd game in our last 4 tries. We got off to a great start as we ran our offense well and played solid defense. We jumped out to a 12 point lead, but fell into some bad habits as Bancroft clawed back into the game. They ended the first half on a 6 - 0 run to cut the lead to just 3, and trailed 33 -36. Brandon Mayfield and Kahari Beaufort led the way in the first half with 6 points a piece while Nic Lane chipped in 5. Andrew Robinson worked hard in the half and dished out 4 assists.
After a small lull to begin the first half, Pomfret began to really play like a team. Interim Co-Captain Mayfield was extremely unselfish as he dished out 5 assists in a 4 minute stretch. His assists were possible because we were moving without the ball and with purpose. In that short stretch we managed to stretch our lead to 16 points. Another huge boost during that stretch was the shooting of Danny Metzgar; he was truly on fire. He hit 5 second half three-pointers, all without a miss. His 5th three pointer put us up by 22 points with about 4 minutes to play.
Though the last 4 minutes weren’t pretty, we were able to get every member of the team into the game and all managed to contribute positively. The final score was 70 - 56.
Mayfield played one of his best games of the season, but the MVP of today’s game was Danny Metzgar. The hostile-ish crowd was talking trash to him, but it seemed to just motivate him as he finished with his Pomfret career-high 21 points on excellent shooting while also playing some very good defense.
Pomfret 67 Suffield 68
Feb. 11: This was one of the most fun endings to a game that I have ever been a part of, and had Brandon Mayfield’s three pointer at the buzzer not rimmed out, it would have been hands down my favorite win in years as a coach. The game started poorly as Suffield jumped out to an 11 - 2 lead as we played pretty poor defense and did not execute on offense. We began to play a little better offensively, but defensively we gave up too many easy shots. Andre King of Suffield was on fire as he hit three straight three-pointers and 11 points. Down by 14 we switched to a box and 1 and Jack Nicholson took on the challenge of guarding King and handled it superbly. His defense frustrated the Suffield guard and we forced their offense through others, causing them to struggle. As Nicholson provided the spark defensively, Kahari Beaufort and Andrew Robinson provided much of the offensive spark as we managed to come all the way back and take a 2 point lead into the half.
The game was back and forth for most of the second half, but Suffield began to pull away as the took an 11 point lead with just over 4 minutes to play. That is when we began to turn up the defense and began chipping away at the lead. A few defensive breakdowns and turnovers prevented us for making a real run, and we were down 6 with about 2:00 left. Danny Gagnon and Beaufort both hit huge clutch threes to get us to within 3. But we were playing the foul game and Suffield shot well from the line. So we were down 3 with about 8 seconds left, and Nic Lane saw that they were overplaying our shooters and made a nice drive to the lane and scored a basket leaving us trailing by 1 with 4 seconds left. Pomfret played great defense which led to a steal by Danny Metzgar, his 5th of the game. Danny quickly passed the ball to Mayfield who made a great move to get open and took a shot that literally rolled in and then out. Game over, we lose. However that last few minutes showed great fight in this team and a never say die attitude.
Hyde
Varsity Basketball
Hyde 43 Wheeler 35
Feb. 9: The losing streak is over! After losing their last seven games, the Wolf Pack finally produced a win against Wheeler. Both teams came into the game with little energy, both struggling to score, and forcing bad shots. Turnovers, and mistakes where the definition of the first half and the score at halftime was Hyde 16, Wheeler 15.
The second half was a lot different, the wolf Pack finally found life and started preasuring the Wheeler offense, coming up with good defensive stops. The offense also came out with a lot of intensity taking the ball right through the Wheeler defense, almost at will. The final score of the game was Hyde 43, Wheeler 35.