Leonard leads Clarke on mat

The accolades continue to pile up for Clarke senior Mike Leonard, Jr., who improved his career win total to 208 with four victories and an individual championship at 125 pounds last Saturday at the Nassau Division I Qualifying Tournament held at MacArthur.

Leonard, Jr., who became just the fourth wrestler in county history to top the 200-career victory plateau earlier this season, was also named the qualifying tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler. He won two matches via pin, a third by technical fall, and then won the title with a 6-2 victory over MacArthur’s Tom Manning.

“It was just what we figured, a hard-fought match,” Rams coach Mike Leonard Sr. said of the finals.

Leonard, Jr., was the Rams only individual champion, but one of eight in all who qualified for the county championships scheduled for this weekend at Hofstra. Junior Vinny Lombardi finished second at 152 pounds after getting pinned by the Generals’ Frank Medeiros at the 1:27 mark of the finals. “He’s had the biggest turnaround of the year out of everybody,” coach Leonard said of Lombardi, who finished below .500 last season but became just the fourth-ever Clarke wrestler to hit 40 wins in a season and currently sits at 40-5.

Clarke’s roster has just three seniors, but that has hardly meant the program was looking past this season. Instead, four other juniors and an eighth-grader will be joining Leonard, Jr., and Lombardi at Hofstra this weekend. Junior Dave Amann took fourth place at 135 pounds, after getting pinned at the 3:20 mark of the placing round, but his best match came against the best competition. He lost a 6-5 decision to MacArthur’s Angelo Rella earlier in the tournament, but gave the champion quite a scare, putting the top seed on his back several times.

Juniors Carl Scmitt and Austin Pereaza battled each other twice last Saturday, splitting the two matches. Schmitt came out on top the second time, taking a 4-1 decision over his teammate in the placing round at 171. Sophomore Mohammed Muzzamal earned second place at 285 and continues to make waves given his unique style at super heavyweight. “He’s strong and powerful,” coach Leonard said. “Unlike other super heavyweights, he’ll shoot [at the legs]. He won’t hang on [to his opponent]. He wants to score. He’s trying to wrestle a small-guy style up top.”

Eighth-grader Kevin Jackson, one of numerous year-round wrestlers in the Clarke program, took fourth at 119 pounds. Senior Brandon Constantine earned third place at 140 pounds, shutting out MacArthur’s Anthony Cormace, 2-0, in the placing round. Fifth-place finishers Joe Hoffman (103 pounds) and Endy Nunez (215) earned points for Clarke, which finished fourth overall among the seven teams, and were hopeful of earning a wild-card entry to this weekend’s championships.

The Rams, as a team, captured their first regular season league title since 1963 with a 5-1 mark in dual meets.