Clarke grapplers start strong

The Clarke wrestling team had a successful December by winning its first duel meet of the season and watching five of its grapplers win their respective weight classes at the Paul P. Grammatico Tournament at Valley Stream South.

One day after besting Oyster Bay to match their entire dual match win total from all of last season, the Rams placed fourth out of 12 teams at Valley Stream South with 197.5 points on Dec. 15, just three shy of second-place Massapequa. It was the team’s best tournament output of the season thus far, topping its efforts at the Battle at the Beach at Long Beach (77 points) on Dec. 1 and the Sprig Gardner Tournament (92) at Bellmore the following weekend.

“Everything is going good,” Rams coach Mike Leonard said. “They’ve been wrestling good. Every time they go out to wrestle, I expect them to win.”

Junior Karl-Osmond Bouyer is off to a perfect 12-0 start and has already won the 220-pound weight class in each of the Rams’ three tournaments. He pinned all four of his opponents at Sprig Gardner and did it again in one minute against Massapequa’s Marco Musso to seal the Long Beach tourney.

Bouyer is on a mission this season after losing a heartbreaker in sudden death during the placement round of last year’s state tournament. He did win the state title in freestyle, but still has his eye on the main prize.

“He’s two levels above where he was last year,” Leonard said. “He’s not just beating kids that aren’t good, he’s beating quality guys.”

Juniors Gabe Cabrera (106), Aiden Yurdiga (138), senior Austin Carman (152) and eighth-grader Justin Soriano (195) also won at Valley Stream and another eighth grader, Jack Forte, was the runner-up in the 120-pound division. Unlike the others, Yurdiga needed five wins to claim his title.

Carman, a county champion in 2016 as a freshman, is an intriguing story this season because he missed most of the last two seasons due to injury. He is back from a knee injury that wiped out all but four of his appearances last year and is showing no signs of tentativeness so far.

“He’s back now ready to go,” Leonard said. “He’s going to do real well.”

Freshman Jordan Soriano, who placed sixth in the state tournament last year, and junior Sean Russell are also on the mend and close to returning from injury to further bolster the team’s depth.

Another team goal is to finish among the top four in the Conference 4B standings to qualify for the playoffs. Leonard expects Cold Spring Harbor, Locust Valley and Seaford to be the top contenders and the Rams to compete with Island Trees for the final postseason berth. The schools face each other in the season finale on Jan. 9.

This year’s roster is virtually intact from last year and 18 members represented the team in last year’s county tournament. Leonard feels that experience will result in a more successful 2018-19 campaign.

“We are going to skyrocket,” he proclaimed.