Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Zander Frost, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wrestling Coach Dan Perry said his Glens Falls Varsity Wrestling team beat Queensbury Thursday for the first time since 1973, in dramatic fashion, 39-36.
Coach Perry said pins by Glens Falls’s Eli Johnson (160 pounds) and Skyler Sturdevant (172) kept the match close. A pin by Queensbury’s Scott Miller (189) set up a climactic final bout.
At 215, Glens Falls’s Gavin Williams was wrestling in the “fourth or fifth match of his life” after switching from basketball, Mr. Perry told The Chronicle.
“If he wins by decision, it was a tie… I didn’t want to think about the [tiebreaker scenario],” the coach said. If he won by pin, Glens Falls would take the match.
Gavin got the pin.
“On the boundary right on the line…place went nuts,” the coach said.
Mr. Perry said he wrestled for Queensbury from which he graduated in 1985. He emphasized the magnitude of this victory. He said it drew e-mails from old coaches and staff celebrating the end of “all those years of futility.”
“The tradition in Glens Falls is basketball…The tradition in Queensbury has always been wrestling…Success breeds success,” he said.
But now, says Coach Perry, he and modified Coach Wayne Hayes have a pipeline of youth talent coming.
This year, he said, “I think we have an opportunity to compete for the Foothills title” for the first time since the 70’s.
Will wrestling unseat basketball’s dominance in Glens Falls?
“That’s not what I’m looking for,” Mr. Perry said. “There’s plenty of kids.”
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