Outnumbered, Riverhead wrestlers leave it all on the mat

Though participation is still down in the Riverhead wrestling program, forcing the team to forfeit some weight divisions in league matches, the Blue Waves who are on the roster are committed to becoming elite wrestlers.

“Small numbers but a lot more fight,” Riverhead varsity wrestling coach Jake Benedetto said. “This is the toughest group of kids that I’ve had in my nine years here. They’re gritty, they’re tough, and they want to get better. They’re really putting their all into the sport and I can’t ask for more than that as the coach.”

Riverhead dropped its second consecutive league match Friday in a 53-13 defeat to Brentwood, but there were moments that showed the team’s true quality. Wrestling at Brentwood High School, the opposing fans were loud and even unruly at times, but that didn’t stop the Blue Waves from coming up with a few victories. At the beginning of the match, they were actually ahead.

“I told the kids, don’t look at the scoreboard,” Benedetto said. “We’re a team but with the forfeits we just can’t compete as a team. This season is about getting better individually. There’s no pressure to get the team a pin for the points; we just want to prepare the guys we have for the postseason.”

After forfeiting the 101-weight class, Liam MacGray flipped the tables and put some points on the board with a 10-3 victory in the 108-pound division. MacGray slammed his opponent in the opening minutes of the match, earning a takedown, and didn’t look back from there. Brentwood’s lead of 6-0 due to the forfeit was cut down to 6-3.

“We’ve been looking forward to getting MacGray on the varsity level,” Benedetto said. “His brother wrestled here and he’s got wrestling in his blood. Liam’s got big shoes to fill and he’s doing a great job of it. He works hard, he listens and is very coachable. He’s athletic and very savvy out there.”

After losing in the 116-pound weight class, Christopher Ramos stepped onto the mat for the 124-pound bout and simply put on a show. From the opening whistle, Ramos was in attack mode, earning points and controlling the entire match. He jumped out to a 5-0 lead before earning the team’s only pin in the first period, with 19 seconds remaining on the clock. The pin earned the Blue Waves six points and cut the Brentwood lead to 10-9.

“For Christopher Ramos, I know it’s cliche to say but you have to trust the process,” Benedetto said. “Last year in the first match against Mattituck, he’ll never forget it because he lost by one point. He lost because he got tired. We talked about getting tired requires no wrestling ability, that’s on you. And he became such a hard worker after that loss and it’s snowballing now. He put in a strong offseason, wrestling with some clubs, and this is the result.”

After Ramos silenced the crowd, sophomore Kamel Coaxum in the 131-pound division left spectators scratching their heads. The Blue Waves weren’t just competing, they were winning. Coaxum jumped out to a 4-0 lead with a takedown in the first and extended his lead to 7-2 by the end of the second period. He closed out the third period, leading 11-3 and put Riverhead ahead 13-10.

“Coaxum is another guy that came around as a freshman and we saw potential and a ceiling in him.” Benedetto said. “I told him that doing the right things 99 percent of the time is going to make you good but that extra 1 percent is going to make you great. If he continues to grind and put 100 percent into everything he does, he’s going to be a special wrestler. His ceiling is incredibly high. He’s a year away from being a star.”

The Blue Waves didn’t win any other matches the rest of the way and had to forfeit the 170 and 190 weight divisions. 

Perhaps Riverhead’s best wrestler didn’t even step on the mat against Brentwood. Zachary Gevinski, the team’s 101-pound wrestler and only All-League medalist last year, has been put on a weight loss program by Suffolk County. Wrestlers can lose only a small amount of weight week-over-week and Gevinski was over the limit therefore needing to sit out one match. But the sophomore, when in action, is among the league’s, if not the county’s, best. The matches he’s wrestled this year haven’t lasted a minute before the opponent was pinned.

“We feel like Gevinski will be all-county this year,” Benedetto said. “He comes from a lineage of Riverhead wrestlers. He’s been doing it since he could walk. I just feel like it’s his time. He knows what it’s going to take to win. Last year he was small for the weight class and now he’s filled in and will be able to compete with anyone. Every piece that was missing is now connected.”