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Ramierz pin seals Batavia's win over Geneva

Jordan Ramierz was in an ideal position to essentially seal a Batavia athletic victory over archrival Geneva Thursday night.

The Geneva wrestling team could not field a participant in two of the final three weight classes in the schools' Upstate Eight River dual match in Batavia.

Ramierz, a 182-pound sophomore, enjoyed the upper-hand for the Bulldogs against Will Cooper.

Ramierz returned the reversal Cooper employed at the beginning of the third period and secured a pin with 19 seconds remaining in the final period to give Batavia a 9-point lead.

The Vikings' Blake Kunkel had a fall in less than a minute in the final contested match at 220 pounds, but it mattered little as Batavia strolled to a 45-30 victory aided by the last of four forfeits at 195 pounds and heavyweight.

"I didn't expect it to work," Ramierz said of the move that produced the match-altering reversal. "I went for it. I needed to get the stick. I needed to get 6 points for the team."

On a night in which there was a mere simple decision in the 10 contested matches, Geneva (10-14, 2-3) more than held its own.

"They have some tough kids," Batavia coach Scott Bayer said of the Vikings.

Michael Donatelli (31-1) and Honor Nguyen (29-2) improved to a combined 60-3 for Geneva with a respective first-period fall and 8-0 whitewash at weights (170 and 132) one class higher than normal.

"I have been going up (in weight) to get the tougher matches," said Donatelli, who needed only 55 seconds to end his match. "That has me wrestling up at 70 a lot. (The Bulldogs' Dart McGee) came out aggressive, but I used physicality to take over."

The Nguyen win at 132 pounds was part of an 18-5 Geneva run that produced the only deficits Batavia (15-11, 5-1) incurred on the night.

Ian Huck had a technical fall for Geneva at 113 pounds and Jace Black had the Vikings' what-proved-to-be first of three first-period falls at 126.

"We got hit, got caught in some moves," Bayer said. "There were a couple of matches we would have liked to have back."

Batavia scored 16 straight points after a Max Miller decision at 138 gave Geneva its largest lead of the match at 18-11.

Evan Hitzeman, the lone Batavia senior in the lineup at 152 pounds, had a second-period pin in the unanswered run.

"We knew we just needed to score points out there (to supplement the forfeits)," Hitzeman said. "The most you can get is a pin (6 points), so we were going for that. We were wrestling for the team."

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