Geneva scores perfect 10 by beating Batavia
Austin Chaon and Mitch Bradberry delivered in dramatic fashion Thursday night.
After visiting Batavia had a major decision at 160 pounds to tie the schools’ Upstate Eight Conference River Division wrestling match, Chaon and Bradberry scored 9 straight points for the Vikings.
The Jake Andersen 5-2 decision over the Bulldogs’ Noah Frazier — one of six Batavia wrestlers making his season debut after a championship football run — clinched the Vikings’ 28-24 victory in Geneva.
Chaon had given Geneva the lead for good with a starting third-period development, needing only 13 seconds to record only the second fall of the night.
The pin gave Geneva a 22-16 lead with four matches remaining.
“Losing was not an option,” Chaon said. “I just needed the pin to solidify the win for the team. I had to dominate.”
Bradbury followed the pin with a 9-2 victory to extend the Vikings’ run to 9 points.
Then Andersen’s 5-2 win mathematially sealed the win for Geneva.
After a scoreless opening period, Frazier escaped to began the second.
Andersen tied the match with a third-period escape and had the only takedown moments later.
Frazier was later cited for stalling, and the Batavia bench was cited for the wrestling equivalent of a basketball technical foul.
It not only cost Frazier another point; the team was docked a point, too.
Suddenly, the 10-point swing gave Geneva, which extended its season-long winning streak to 10 matches, a 28-18 lead.
Frazier, one of the standouts on the Bulldogs’ Class 6A football state championship team, had one practice before the match.
“I hate to make excuses,” said Frazier, who admitted to be rusty. “There is no shape like wrestling shape. It will take about a week or two (to get into wrestling shape).”
Andersen came away with a similar view.
“(Frazier) definitely wasn’t in shape,” Andersen said. “I have been working my (butt) off to get to here. (Frazier) took a bad shot (in the third period). (The takedown) was much simpler than it looked.”
The match was analogous to a defensive struggle in football interspersed with a few big plays.
Takedowns in general and back points in particular were frequently absent as Batavia (1-6, 0-1) won five simple decisions, almost all of which were low-scoring bouts.
Evan Baker opened the night for Geneva (10-0, 2-0) with a fall at 106 pounds, only to see the Bulldogs’ Mike Doranski (113 pounds), Seth Winkle (120) and Joe Posledni (126) win simple decisions in succession.
Colin Parsons’ major decision at 132 restored the Geneva lead, and the exchanged runs of close matches ended when Jake Birkhaug had the first back points in the opening eight matches for Batavia to knot the score at 16-16 at 160 pounds.
“Conditioning was a factor (for the football players),” Batavia coach Scott Bayer said. “We missed bonus point opportunities. We didn’t have quite enough firepower.”
Connor McKeehan had the Bulldogs’ lone fall at heavyweight to account for the final score.