Thursday, October 1, 2026
For a Seaford wrestling team that last winter had five kids qualify for states, it has all five returning. With the ‘ability to do great things,’ it starts at practice for coach Dave Takseraas’ group.
“I tell a team every year to come in every day, get better, practice hard and every match we wrestle in to compete hard," Takseraas said. “We have the capability to do some great things if everybody’s putting in the work that they need to. Competing in the way that they know how to compete and the way that we expect them to compete, we get some good results.”
Freshman Colden Friedman (110), sophomore Joel Diaz (118), senior captain Connor Murphy (132), junior Brendan Fox (126) and sophomore Brock Conway (157) are the five returning state qualifiers from a season ago.
Friedman is coming off a season in which he won the Division II county championship as an eighth-grader in the 101-pound weight class. In addition to Friedman, Diaz was named an honorable mention, Murphy brought home his second county championship, Fox won a county championship (116) and Conway finished as a runner-up.
Senior captain Yianni Thomas (144) comes off a season in which he recorded the most wins for his team, with 38.
“Friedman, Thomas, Diaz and Conway put a lot of time in doing offseason practices and offseason tournaments,” Takseraas said. “A lot of them have gotten stronger in the weight room and have put on muscle, filling out the weight class a little stronger.”
Friedman has finished in first place through two tournaments thus far. He won the 110 championships in the Uniondale Knight Classic Tournament and the Manhasset JV Tournament.
Seniors Ayden McNamara (190), John Saboni (215) and Tom Mirenda (175) round out the senior class. Eighth-grader Connor Hanly (103) and junior Joe Lynch (165) will have a chance to make an impact.
“We have most of our starting lineup returning this year,” Takseraas said. “We’re just more experienced and we got a good mix of upperclassmen and underclassmen filling out the lineup. Another year of [a lot of experience], so [we’re] hoping to top what we did last year.”
The long-awaited wait for Hanly has come to an end, as he leaps varsity. “Connor is somebody that’s been wrestling since he was five-years old, he came up through our youth program,” Takseraas said. “He’s competed in so many tournaments. We know him, he’s a great wrestler, so we’re excited to pull him up.” He’s already had success wrestling at 103 for us, so he's somebody we knew a lot about. We’re excited to get him onto the high school team, and he’s finally arrived.”
As for the season ahead.
“There are high expectations for this team,” Takseraas said. “We’re hoping we’ll even exceed those expectations.”
