Minutemen Youth Wrestling

On Sunday February 27, 2005 at Hillhouse High School in New Haven the younger Berlin Minutemen competed in the State Championship. The Bantams were represented by Andrew Zovich who lost his first match of the day before rolling off three straight wins for third place. Andrew's closest match came against Olivia Satti from Waterford who he squeaked out a 10-8 win. Next up was Sean Sullivan wrestling in the 62 pound bracket. Sean pinned his first opponent before being beaten in the final by Nicholas Hemm from Colchester. Sean then had to defeat Khamri Thomas from Enfield 10-3 to take 2nd place. The final Bantam at 65 pounds was Jeremy Eliades who placed first in all the tournaments he wrestled this winter. The State Tournament would be no different as he won by Technical Fall and then defeated Peter Elias 4-0 in the Championship for his second State title in as many years. The Midgets had five entries who all placed. Starting at 52 lbs. was Anthony Zovich who pinned his first opponent lost to Nikolas Stefanatos of New Milford and the beat Matthew Elias 6-4 to finish 2nd. The 65 pound class had Jacob Eliades who won by forfeit, before winning in overtime 6-4 against Zachary Tepper of Danbury. Jacob pinned Benjamin Reale in the final at 3:50. This was Jacobs second straight state title in a row. In the tough 66 weight class was Colin Cunningham. Each opponent he faced was taller but that didn't slow him down after dropping his first match 10-2 Colin won by Technical Fall over Sam Olsson before losing to Steven Persson by pin to settle for 4th place. Wrestling one of the best tournaments of his young career was Todd Koops in the 67 pound weight class. Todd won his first two matches on the day before being beaten by Will Rishell of Hebron. He then lost in the Consolation Final to Miguel Calixto of Windham to finish third. Nicholas Mangiafico wrestled in the 69 pound weight class wining his first two matches by 13-0 scores. In the next match he lost to Jake Gonzalez of South Windsor 13-4 and then beat David Colvin of Colchester 6-4. In this match Nicholas trailed by 4 points with 10 seconds to go in the match when he hit a five point move putting Colvin to his back to win the match 5-4 for 2nd place. Head Coach Roger Moss, said, "the young wrestler's did well and have shown great improvement over the course of this year." He added, "The future is bright for Berlin Wrestling if they keep improving at their current pace.