By Ed Shepherd
SPORTS CORRESONDENT

Kennedy Catholic wrestlers Sebastian Ferraro and Alex Lesar,represented the Lancers at the 3A Washington State Mat Classic Championships at the Tacoma Dome on February 20-21.

Ferraro finished seventh place while Lesar won his first match at state, unlike Ferraro, but then lost his next two and was not a state placer (top eight).

"They did pretty good," said Lancers head wrestling coach, Perry Sampley. "They did the best they could."
For his opening match on Friday, Ferraro went against Auburn's Mark Luevano, and lost a close one, 5-3.
"I think that match could have gone either way, but it didn't go Sebastian's way," said Sampley.

Tough loss in the first place when one loses his opening match at state, which immediately eliminates him from contention of winning a state championship. Ferraro, preseason ranked No. 2 in 3A at 220 pounds, and who finished sixth in the state last year, then watched Luevano go on to win the 3A 220-pound state title, 2-1, in overtime, over Tim Smith from Meadowdale (Lynnwood).

So, a two-point loss in round one for Ferraro to the eventual champ, likely, put a cringe on Ferraro's face. Sampley noted the closeness of Ferraro's opening loss to Luevano, with sentiment, too, put on another loss by Ferraro a couple matches later at state.

"He probably wishes he would have done some things differently," said Sampley.

With that first, tough, not to mention, tough-luck, match done for Ferraro, he was sent into the 220-pound consolation bracket, and the good news, at this time, was that Ferraro could, still, improve over his 2014 sixth place state finish.

So, in the match following the Luevano loss, Ferraro took on a Mount Spokane wrestler, Alec Boyd, and got a pin on that foe at just 37 seconds into round one. So, then, for his third match, Ferraro faced Southridge (Kennewick) wrestler Mario Prada and pinned Prada in 3:40 of the second round. To note, there are three rounds in wrestling, of two-minute periods each, so, Ferraro pinned Prada, 1 minute, 40 seconds into round two.

That win set up Ferraro to wrestle against Antonio Correa of Auburn-Mountainview, and Ferraro would be wrestling for no worse than a sixth place finish if he could beat Correa. But, that match happened differently than Ferraro wanted, as Correa pinned him at 3:31 of the second round.

"Sebastian went through the loser's bracket and, since he lost first match (Correa) on Saturday, he couldn't be wrestling for third to sixth place," said Sampley.

But Ferraro kept fighting hard and wrestled for seventh-eighth place, and beat North Central (Spokane) wrestler Jacob Koczor at 2:24 of the second round.

Ferraro's teammate and training partner in practices, Lesar, wrestled in the same 220-pound class as Ferraro. Both wrestlers this season benefited from being able to go against each other in Lancers' practices.

"Sebastian and I have trained for three years now," said Lesar. "I credit a majority of my success to training with Sebastian. He keeps the intensity high and never lets up in practice. His relentlessness doesn't let me get away with just going through the motions in practice. Rather, I am able to find out what moves will and will not work in a match; if I shoot a bad shot, he'll block me and let me know it's a bad shot, I'll then tweak it until it works. We're practicing to prepare for opponents who will slam us to our backs at every chance they get, so it makes sense to practice like that intensity."

But Lesar ended up out of state after the first day, but not before he had beat Correa, the same guy Ferraro wrestled and lost to in a consolation match, as aforementioned.

And Lesar started off the tournament for himself in that kind of fine fashion, beating Correa, 4-3, so that win made his tournament nice no matter what would happen after that. Noting, Ferraro, was the No. 1 wrestler from the school at 220.

Lesar, in his second round match, went against Markus Robinson of Rogers (Spokane), and lost a tough one, there, by pin with just 18 seconds left in round three at 5:42 time.

So, great job at state by both these guys for the Lancers, getting to state, winning matches, representing their school well.

Some nice honors were bestowed on the Lancers, too, aside from the athletic side of things, as Sampley related.

"We had a couple academic state champs," he said, speaking of the season. And, who gets to be an academic state champ?

"There is one in each classification, one per weight class," he said.

And, those representative honors went to Ben Josie, at 195, and Lesar.

Also getting honorable mention academic state champion honors were Jacob Dailey and Ferraro.