High School Wrestling

BY CHRIS MASCARO

I pose this question to all of you because I really don't know myself. Glenn cruised in Suffolk's Division II last season, with 11 finalists. But only one, Mike Castellano, placed in the Division II states, as Glenn finished 38th.

This is the fifth season with a separate Division II, and in all five, Long Island teams have struggled at the states (mainly because there aren't that many D2 clubs on L.I. compared to upstate). In the coming weeks I'll post more about the debate over why a Division II even exists. But for now, I am curious to see about Glenn.

For the past few years, the team that won Division II has made a successful transition up to Division I the next year. It was Mount Sinai last year, Shoreham-Wading River the year before that, and Eastport-South Manor the year before that. It's almost like the European soccer teams getting promoted to the big time if they win the lower league.

Except there is no relegation. So Suffolk's Division II is a watered down "half-league" consisting of just these seven squads (courtesy of sectionxi.org):

Division 2
League 7*
Southampton
Babylon
Hampton Bays
C Moriches
Port Jefferson
McGann-Mercy
Stony Brook

See how it says League 7 with an asterisk? Well that's because all of the other leagues have a league tournament to qualify for the counties, but anybody from League VII can compete in the Division II tournament (again, more on this when I post my Division II argument in the coming weeks).

So this year it's Glenn's turn. I have no doubt in my mind that Glenn will be a strong team, but I need to curb my enthusiasm, if you will, about their chances. They wrestled pretty subpar competition last year, as evident by the fact that the 103-, 112- and 119-pound finals were all-Glenn affairs .

Glenn has brought back most of its talent from last season, and has five wrestlers ranked in the county at Division I, including sophomore Nick Meinsen at 103, who beat Syosset's Danny Arnel (placed sixth in the Division I states at 96 pounds last year) at a tournament.

Am I sold? Not yet. As I said before, Glenn has plenty of talent, but needs to show a little more because of where it was last year. So I kept the Knights out of my Long Island top 10 (in Sunday's preview) for now. But with a few more impressive wins, Glenn could certainly crack that list in a hurry. Stay tuned.

**UPDATE: I realized after I wrote this post that I probably say how Glenn is doing thus far as a team. Well, the Knights were second at the Bethpage Dad's Club Tournament behind MacArthur in a relatively competitive field, and defeated St. Anthony's (42-18) on December 14 and Commack (39-23) on December 19. Not bad, but again, not enough to show who they really are yet.

As we speak, Glenn is hosting Cold Spring Harbor and Manhasset, two Division II schools from Nassau. Manhasset was the D2 champ in Nassau last year, and should provide a bit of a challenge.