Four qualifier champs lead Hewlett

The Hewlett wrestling team finished its dual meet season with a record of 4-1 and had a great showing at the Nassau Division 1 qualifier last Saturday in Mineola, finishing in second with 346.5 points.
“I’m really proud of this group,” Bulldogs coach Stephen Jones said. “A majority of our seniors have been together since they’re really young, so I think we’ve been trying to take a little bit of pressure off and focusing on enjoying ourselves. They’ve been having fun because this is their last ride together and I think they’re wrestling better every week.”
Hewlett had four qualifer champions and will send 13 wrestlers to the county championships at Hofstra this weekend.
“I thought we had a really nice performance this weekend,” Jones said. “Of the thirteen, I think a lot of the guys have a really good chance of going deep in the tournament, that’s usually where we do well.”
Andrew Spencer, Jesse McMahon, Oleg Daniloff, Christopher Maiorano and Peter Santos unfortunately fell short in their title quests but had impressive showings throughout the qualifier.

“Some of our wrestlers had really tough losses but still wrestled really well,” Jones said. “Maiorano lost to the eventual champion in double overtime but he’s one of the guys that will be in the mix for all-county. We have a lot of athletes I think can go deep into the tournament.”
Captains Kirk Smith (124) and Eric Gendlin (138) were both champions in their respective weight classes. Smith had the most pins in the least amount of time, recording four of them in 3:47.
Carlos Salazar (116) and Jacob Bouskilla (152) both won their title bouts with pins, Salazar winning in 52 seconda and Bouskilla winning in 1:11. Salazar is a leading contender for the county title.
“[Salazar] has been one our best wrestler all season and he’s only 14,” Jones said. “He took fourth in the Eastern States Tournament this year, losing in overtime and that’s tougher than any other tournament on the east coast. I think he’s got a real chance to get to the state final, let alone the county final.”
The season has a whole has been a very successful one for the Bulldogs and Jones has not only been pleased with the team’s progress throughout the year, but is looking forward to see how much further some of the wrestlers can go.
The Bulldogs are looking to get as many kids on the All-County podium (top six) as possible.
“I think that we wrestled a very tough schedule, one of the hardest schedules in New York State and any team on Long Island,” Jones said.”Because of that, we’re battle tested and when this weekend comes we’ll be prepared. That, combined with keeping them healthy, making sure the guys are mentally ready and getting them to peak at the right time, these are all things that we really work on with them to try to get their best wrestling out of them this weekend.”