62.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Danziger leads East Meadow wrestlers
Record at 34-1, seeks wild-card berth to state tournament
Andrew Danziger’s first loss of the 2010-11 season was also his toughest, a 12-8 decision to Wantagh’s Tom Hall in the 215-pound finals at the Nassau County Division I wrestling championships last Sunday night at Hofstra.
After entering the tournament with a 31-0 mark, the East Meadow senior won his first two matches with first-period pins, and then earned a hard-fought 4-3 decision over Freeport’s Oscar Bruce in the semifinals.
Hall, however, jumped out to a 4-1 edge after one period, turning a pair of Danziger takedown attempts into four points of his own. The edge grew as large as 11-3 in the third period, before Danziger, seeded first in the weight class, made a big push in the final minute, scoring five of the final six points in the match. Hall celebrated his 18th birthday by avenging an earlier one-point loss this season when the two wrestlers met.
“Hats off to Tom Hall,” Jets coach Chris Critchley said. “He did a great job and was well-prepared to wrestle Andrew.”
With three All-County seasons under his belt, a 34-1 mark and an earlier victory over Hall, the county champion, the hope now is for Danziger to earn a wild-card berth to the upcoming New York State Public High School Athletic Association tournament scheduled for Feb. 25-26 at the Times Union Center in Albany. “We hope he gets the chance to right the stumble,” Critchley said of Danziger, who has 112 career victories.
East Meadow finished eighth overall as a team, due largely to Danziger’s run to the finals, as well as the All-County honors earned by senior Sal Vallone, who finished fourth at 103 pounds, and junior Evan Pantofel at 160 pounds.
Vallone provided some fireworks in his 10-4 decision over Massapequa’s Joe Doria to advance to the placing round, scoring the final nine points of the match in the last minute of the third period. After struggling to break free from Doria through two rounds, Vallone scored a point on an escape and then went to work from the top, scoring two points on a takedown and adding six more on a pair of backpoints.
