Huskies Lack Effort In Loss To Pleasantville

Thursday afternoon at Louis M. Klein Middle School the home town Harrison High School wrestling team celebrated senior day by honoring several athletes and their families, however the Huskies got beat both mentally and physically by the Pleasantville Panthers 52-21.

Junior Duke Alvora wrestled at 215 pounds and though Alvora won his match 8-2, it was not as easy as the score would indicate.

It was a true test of endurance as the match had to continuously be stopped because one of the competitors had an open cut. The stoppages in play made it difficult for Alvora to go on any significant run but he was still able to pick up points over his opponent at opportune times and he finally won in convincing fashion.

Another one of  the most exciting matches of the evening was by senior captain Andrew Planamento whose win by pin came only a fraction of a second before the buzzer sounded. The match electrified the crowd and both benches.

"I knew I was up a few points and I knew couldn't get thrown," Planamento said of last seconds of his match, "Once he went to his back I knew I would finish him. It was really great to end my senior year with the win."

Coach Vincent Nicita said that match was a really big win for the team.

"Andrew did a great job, I bumped him up a weight today, and we knew we had to take some chances to beat them," Nicita said of his senior. "He wrestled a kid that took second in the section last year, the guy was bigger and stronger then Andrew and gave him a great match. But Andrew did what he had to do, he sunk his hips and countered him and at that point in the match it was a really big win for us."

Planamento's win raises his individual record for the year to 34-2 and made the score of the meet 21-12 in favor of the Huskies.

Wrestling is a team sport and though Alvora and Planamento both gave great efforts the team it self lost every match fallowing Planamento's.

"I'm not real happy with the effort, this was for a league title. Our kids knew they had to put everything they had into it and wrestle with some urgency," Nicita said of his team. "To be honest Pleasantville just wanted it more then us. We only won two matches, Planamento and Duke were tough but some of the other guys just didn't want it bad enough. We had guys loosing by a point with time left and no one took a shot. I am just not happy with the team's effort."

Pleasantville head coach, Bob Bernarducci, knows he may have caught the Huskies on a down day.

"It was a lot closer then the score would indicate, if a few matches went a little differently it could have been a different story," Bernaducci said. "I told my kids it was going to be a war, even the wins were tough fought, there were no easy wins. You always need to be prepared for Harrison, if nothing else you know they're going to be physical and aggressive and they were today."

The wrestlers from Harrison High School will need to improve quickly if they want to make any noise in the playoffs this season.