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Hampton Bays senior Willy Kraus lost both of his matches at the state tournament this past weekend. JIM FRANCO
Hampton Bays senior Willy Kraus lost both of his matches at the state tournament this past weekend. JIM FRANCO
The start to any wrestling tournament is important, but when it’s on the biggest stage, such as the New York State Division II Wrestling Championships, it becomes exponentially more important.
Hampton Bays senior Willy Kraus held a 4-3 lead in his first round match at 145 pounds at the state tournament held at Times Union Center in Albany on Friday and Saturday, but Newfane junior Ryan Nugent (Section VI-Western NY) scored a two-point takedown with 10 seconds remaining to take the match, 5-4.
It was a tough way to start the tournament for Kraus, who many felt should have had a bigger lead so that the final reversal wouldn’t have had that much of an effect on the match.
“There were one or two questionable calls relating to inbounds takedowns, however the Section 6 kid was able to get a takedown right at the end of the third period giving him the win,” Hampton Bays head coach Mike Lloyd said.
Kraus went on to lose his first wrestleback match, 5-0, to junior Kameron Riordan of Pioneer (Section VI) in the first round of wrestlebacks and was eliminated from the tournament. Riordan, who was seeded 15th, wound up placing fifth in the state. Kraus said that the tough loss in his first match didn’t have that much of an effect on how he wrestled in his second match, because he was going to have to wrestle hard regardless.
The 145-pound bracket had a couple of occurrences where things could have lined up well for Kraus. The top seed in the bracket injury defaulted his first match against the 16th seed, then the 12th seed defaulted his match against the fifth seed. Lloyd said he thought that would open things up for Kraus later on in the tournament, but it simply didn’t work out that way.
“It’s a little disappointing, but nothing you can really do it about it,” Kraus said. “Just have to move forward.
“It will be sad to see Willy leave — he’s brought a lot to the program and had been someone that several of his teammates looked up to,” Lloyd said. “He really devoted himself to the sport of wrestling and found every opportunity to improve himself. He will however be continuing his wrestling career in college studying engineering at RIT in the fall.”
Kraus only started wrestling his freshman year and went on to have himself a pretty successful high school career, going 80-33 and being a three-time All-County wrestler and a county champion the past two seasons. He’s looking forward to starting his college career at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
“I’m definitely excited to wrestle there. They’re a top-20 team in the nation right now,” he said. “It’ll be great to be a part of that. Hopefully, I can have success on the national level there.”
Kraus is really the only key departing senior for Hampton Bays. With a strong class of juniors, including county finalist River Orlando and All-County wrestlers in Dakota Thompson and Will Krivickas to go along with key returners in Jesse Riscen, Alex Velasquez, Kevin Sohtz and Ethan Culhane, next season should be strong for the Baymen.
