Harriton earns bragging rights by defeating Lower Merion

by NHSCA Sports Network staff writer

Posted on January 31, 2009

In the annual battle for superiority in the Lower Merion school district, Harriton locked up this year's contest when David Horev (189lbs) decked James Flowers in the second period to make the score 30-23. A Lower Merion forfeit at 215 lbs put the icing on the cake for the Rams.

Friday night's meeting between cross town rivals had a little extra meaning. After this season, some of these boys will be wrestling on the same team as a result of Lower Merion's recently announced re-districting plan. Harriton is currently a small AA school with Lower Merion being AAA. The new plan will possibly result in both schools becoming competitors in the AAA division.

You could tell right from the beginning that both schools were juggling their line-ups with quite a few Lower Merion wrestlers bumping up and some of Harriton's wrestlers moving to lower weight classes for the first time. The chess match started early when Lower Merion bumped Robert Chase up from 215 to wrestle against Colin Powell at 285. Chase started out with a quick takedown. Powell quickly reversed Chase with the period ending 2-2. Powell then used a cradle in the second period and a lateral drop with 15 seconds left to come up with the major decision 14-4.

Lower Merion then won 2 of the next 3 matches from 103 – 119. Lower Merion's Charles Weinberg got a quick takedown and controlled fellow freshman Jack Ebby for a 5-1 victory. Sophomore Connor Wortley
( Harriton 112 ) scored a last second takedown in the third period to earn a major decision 11-3. Aces sophomore Mark Leitch made short work of Ram Zach Geaneotes by pinning him at 1:40 of the first period. Geaneotes was filling in for Elliot Levy who weighed in but did not wrestle.

Harriton Seniors Jack Harris and Joe Powell stepped up to earn two decisive victories at 125 and 130 respectively. Jack Harris used cement mixers and arm bars to defeat Robert McGowen 11-2 and Joe Powell, down to 130 lbs for the first time this season, defeated Sophomore Cody Kaplan 9-2.

In one of the more exciting matches of the night, Lower Merion's sophomore Greg Robinson kept the team score close by scoring a reversal with 2 seconds left in the match and pull ahead 5-4 over Harriton's Alex Wakely.

In the 140 lb match Ben Gidaro tied the team score at 15 points by earning a 12-8 decision over Harriton Senior Dan Levin. This was Levin's first match in over a month after suffering and obvious injury to his right arm. Levin started out of the gate very strong scoring the first take down and riding his opponent for the remainder of the period. In the second period, Levin was caught in a headlock for 5 points and after swapping reversals found himself behind 7- 4 at the end of the 2nd period. Gidaro, starting out on top in the third period and scored three back points. They traded escapes and takedowns with Gidaro pulling out the decisive win 12 – 8.

In a strategic move, Lower Merion forfeited to Harriton's Mark Singer at 152 lbs and bumped Sophomore Darryl Seligman to 160 lbs to face Harriton senior Steve Jacovic. This move really paid off with Seligman hitting a 5 point move in the first period and repeating for another five in the second period making the final score 10–1.

In the last exciting match of the day, Lower Merion moved Sophomore Zeke Zimmer up to 171 lbs to face Haddon Corbett. Corbett used a cement mixer to score a big five points early on. Zimmer eventually reversed Corbett who quickly escaped to make the score 6-2. Corbett seemed content with the point spread and proceeded to swap escapes for takedowns to finish up with a victory 10-7.

With Horev scoring the decisive pin at 189, all that was left was for Manos Attalaidis to pick up the forfeit for Harriton to end the match 36-23 and garner the coveted bragging rights.

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