VOORHEESVILLE — The Voorheesville wrestling team will be short on numbers this season but not short on talent.

The Blackbirds, who have just 12 wrestlers on the squad, showed their talent by finishing third at the Berne-Knox-Westerlo Tournament held on Saturday. Blackbird wrestlers won 22 of the 33 matches in which they competed, 21 by pin.
"He had eight guys wrestle and four guys won it," said Voorheesville’s senior captain, Charlie McGrail. "We should have two or three more guys return this week, so we will have 11 out of 15 spots, and we’ll be looking good."

McGrail won the 189-pound weight class and was named the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler.

Eighth-grader Colton Parrott won the 96-pound weight class; ninth-grader Taylor Treadgold won the 112-pound weight class; and sophomore Andrew Clark won the 135-pound weight class.

Tenth-grader Frank Kaus finished third in the 145-pound weight class. Freshman Jim Sheedy was third in the 152-pound class and senior Jason Pincheon was second in the 140-pound weight class. Eighth-grader Dylan Foster was third in the 119-pound weight class.

Chris Dollard, a sophomore, wrestled tough in his first career matches, though he came away from the tournament winless.
"He’s our super heavyweight and he’s in his first year," said Voorheesville Coach Dennis Robinson. "He didn’t win any matches but it took a lot of backbone to go out there. And he wrestled hard."
"Everybody has improved," McGrail said. "Saturday, we had four guys take first place at the Berne tournament."

The Blackbirds were missing senior Alex Zvinosky who is out with an injury.
"We’re expecting him back from an injury he suffered during football," Robinson said. "He should be back this week. A lot of coaches are looking for him. He got hurt in the Class C tournament last year. We probably could have gone to Glens Falls."

The Glens Falls Civic Center is where the Section II state qualifier tournament is held each year.

Sophomore Jake Marks will also be returning after having an appendectomy a few weeks ago.

"Individual goals"
"We have individual goals we’ll be working on during the year," McGrail said. "We can have a lot of guys do well at the Class D and Section II tournaments. We have a lot of guys that want to go out and do their best and win. But realistically, when it comes to dual matches, with the number of guys we have, to have success is far-fetched."

McGrail finished third in the Class C tournament last year — the Birds move down a class this year — and fifth in the Section II meet.
"A lot of people graduated and I moved down to 189 from 215 pounds last year," McGrail said for potential success this year. "I would like to win Class D and it would be great to win the Section II tournament. It’s now or never. I worked hard to get here and I’m going to go out with no regrets."

McGrail said that Pincheon should have a good season in his final campaign and that underclassmen Treadgold, Parrott, and Clark will be good for a few years.

The young Blackbird team will be thrown into the fire for its first two Colonial Council matches.
"We are a very young team," Robinson said. "We have no juniors. We wrestled tough against Lansingburgh. They will be number one or number two in the conference. We start off the year against the number-one and number-two teams in the league in Lansingburgh and Ravena. But I hope to have 10 kids on the mat this weekend at the Glens Falls Tournament."

With such a small team, Robinson’s expectations have changed.
"We’re looking to have a successful year," he said. "We’ll win a lot of individual matches. But we’re giving up 24 points right off the bat with forfeits. But the kids on the mat are your typical tough Voorheesville kids. They scrap. We had a great pre-season. We’re solid and in shape.

"A space of our own"
"This is a great group of kids," Robinson added. "And again, just like every year, the administration supports us. [Athletic Director] Joe Sapienza has been great with giving us what we need to get on the mat. And we got a new wrestling room and that’s been great."

The Birds have a new nest to call their own. A room just for wresting practice was set up this year in the basement of the high school’s addition. The room is decorated in the school colors with purple mats on the floor and purple and yellow mats on the walls.
"It definitely makes us feel like there is somebody behind us," McGrail said. "It’s out of the way, but it gives us our own place with mats and padded walls. I’m grateful for it; it’s definitely cool.
"We don’t have to set up mats every day like we used to in the cafeteria," McGrail added. "We don’t have to get all the tables out of the way. We can go down and go to work."
"It adds a lot," Robinson said. "We’re not done decorating it yet. But it helps us focus and gets us out of the cafeteria"
"It gives us a space of our own and gives the team an identity," Robinson added. "The basketball team has the gym and we have the room. I’m thankful for the administration to set aside this space for us. We had open mats here and three or four new kids showed up and wrestled over the summer. We want to expand on that."