Jets pile up titles in qualifier

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Coming off a big showing at last Saturday’s Nassau County qualifying wrestling tournament—East Meadow had 14 of its 20 wrestlers finish among the top four in their weight class and advanced to this weekend’s county championships at Hofstra—the Jets are eager to keep rolling on the mats.

On top of hosting one of the six qualifiers, East Meadow also had one of its own, senior Marcos Watkins, earn the day’s Most Outstanding Wrestler. One of four Jets to earn individual titles, Watkins, seeded No. 2 at 220 pounds, knocked off top-seeded Hamza Raza, 6-1, in the finals.

“They wrestled with conviction,” coach Chris Edmunds said. “And when [kids] wrestle like that you can’t ask for anything more.”

Watkins battled Lawrence’s Ramza, a county runner-up last season, to a 1-1 standstill for much of the finals before scoring a five-point move to break the tie in the final 30 seconds. The win followed a pair of earlier pins that put Watkins in position for the individual championship. “It was a very exciting match, very close,” Edmunds said. “He works hard, listens and worked the gameplan to a T. He had to know what to do to defend [Ramza]’s shots and then got his offense working.”

Junior Jesse Weiner turned in just as strong a performance as Watkins, winning all three of his matches by decision, including a 4-2 battle in the 182-pound finals against Rodriguez that went to overtime. After dropping a match to Rodriguez earlier in the season by pin, Weiner, seeded fourth in the weight class evened the score in a higher-stakes match. He scored an immediate takedown in overtime to win the individual title. The road to the title also included a victory over the top seed in the weight class, Wantagh’s Nick Copolla, in the semifinals. “He was focused, paid attention and just went after it,” Edmunds said. “I think the work he put in over the summer helped him jump up another level.”

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