‘Bolts fall in D-II semis

Matt Metcalf, Sports Editor
Posted 2/25/15

After a 13-4 season in Division II-B, the Cranston East wrestling team entered the Division II Dual Meet State Championships on Friday night with a great deal of confidence.

Unfortunately for the …

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‘Bolts fall in D-II semis

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After a 13-4 season in Division II-B, the Cranston East wrestling team entered the Division II Dual Meet State Championships on Friday night with a great deal of confidence.

Unfortunately for the ‘Bolts, they ran into a team that just had more depth throughout their lineup in undefeated Chariho.

After keeping up with the Chargers early, the meet slowly slipped away from the ‘Bolts, with Chariho running away for a 56-22 victory.

“Chariho’s a very good team, a quality team,” East head coach Glenn Castiglia said. “They’re loaded with experienced kids. We were very happy that we qualified for the tournament and we were just looking to come in and compete.”

East won three matches against Chariho on Friday night, an improvement from when the two teams met back in the regular dual meet season.

“In our first meet against them back in January, we only won one match,” Castiglia said. “We were really just looking for an improvement. I told the guys that we had nothing to lose. We just asked them to attack for six minutes and do the best that they could for six minutes. There were a bunch of them who did that.”

The ‘Bolts got their first win of the match from Gianni Andreoli, who battled and pinned his opponent, cutting East’s deficit to 16-12.

Sophomore Jorge Hernandez then tied the meet, 16-16, after he earned four points for the ‘Bolts, going the distance in a long, taxing match.

However, Chariho would then pull away, earning pins in each of the next two matches.

Senior standout Grant Scott dominated his match at 160, pinning his opponent. But even after Scott’s win, Chariho still led by 12 and it only continued to widen its lead as the meet went on.

East lost three matches in the upper-weight classes and also had to forfeit a match at 220.

When it was all said and done, Chariho advanced to the finals with the 56-22 win.

Although Castiglia would’ve liked to see his team in the finals, he was proud of some of the individual efforts that were put forth – particularly from Andreoli, Hernandez and Scott.

“Grant is our one senior and we look to him to get a lot of wins for us,” Castiglia said. “Hernandez wrestled pretty well at 138. Andreoli also did well at 132 and we had a couple of guys in the middle.”

Castiglia was pleased with some of his wrestlers who battled in losing efforts, as well.

“Some of our younger kids like Darnell Dunston lost, but battled for six minutes,” Castiglia said. “He did what we asked him to do. Even though he got beat up in the score pretty good, he battled, and we were happy about that.”

Chariho went on to defeat Pilgrim, 54-19, for the D-II title.

The ‘Bolts will now compete at the state championships, which will take place on Friday and Saturday at the Providence Career and Technical Academy. The two-day meet will begin on Friday at 3 p.m. and will resume on Saturday at 10 a.m.

East will most likely have eight wrestlers compete at the state meet, with many of its younger wrestlers going to the freshmen or junior varsity states.

Castiglia is hoping for the best going into the weekend.

“We didn’t have anyone place in the top six last year, so our goal going in is to just get a medal,” Castiglia said. “We’re hoping to have someone go in there and really compete, whoever it might be, and get a medal. If that happened, then we would be very happy.”

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