Bulldog wrestlers open new campaign with high hopes

Freshman Eddie Marinilli brings a championship pedigree to the CHS wrestling program. (Mike Barucci photo)

Blessed with considerable roster depth and some legitimate top-end talent, the CHS wrestling team enters the 2016-17 season full of excitement and with high hopes for a strong winter campaign.

Already, the Bulldogs have a convincing league win under their belts — 51-27 over Oliver Ames — along with a program-best showing at the annual Scituate Tournament, where the squad placed second out of 10 schools and put five wrestlers into the finals.

Three of the five finished the tournament as champions, including freshman sensation Eddie Marinilli, who wrestles at 126 pounds and has yet to be beaten this season.

“To say that he has a leg up coming into the program is a pretty big understatement,” head coach Brian Caffelle said of Marinilli, a reigning youth New England champion. “He’s wrestling like a seasoned vet and he’s dominated every single opponent he has wrestled so far.”

Also winning at Scituate were senior Brandon Lentol, who remains unbeaten this season at 170 pounds, and promising junior Anis Chakir, who has moved up to the 132-pound division. Teams were allowed to have two wrestlers compete in each weight class at the tournament, and junior William Khoury, Canton’s backup at 126, made it all the way to the finals where he lost to teammate Marinilli. Senior captain Mark Whalen was the other finalist at 220 pounds, while fellow captain Stathi Dandis took third at 183 pounds.

A few days later in Easton, the Bulldogs got contributions from up and down the roster as they cruised to an easy win over OA on the Tigers’ home mats.

Caffelle described it as a “great team win from beginning to end,” capped off by Harry Carter’s thrilling comeback victory in overtime via pinfall.

A former backup at 113 pounds, Carter turned heads at last year’s sectional meet when he stepped up to wrestle at 120 and ended up taking fifth and qualifying as an alternate for states. He has since taken over the starting spot at that weight class and is off to a very strong start, following up his win at OA with a 3-0 showing at last weekend’s Hanover quad meet.

From a team perspective, the Hanover quad was Canton’s least successful event to date, with the Bulldogs managing just one win — 36-30 over Norwell — followed by losses to Duxbury (43-31) and Hanover (40-39). Caffelle said the loss to Hanover was especially heartbreaking and was the result of taking too many pins. Still, he was encouraged by the team’s competitiveness against two tough programs and thought there were a number of good individual performances, including clean sweeps by Marinilli, Lentol, Steven Corkery (106 lbs.), and Justin Dickie (113 lbs.).

Several other Bulldog wrestlers picked up wins either at the quad meet or in previous action, including senior captain Thomas Monagle (160 lbs.), Nick Matt (285 lbs.), Josh Nix (195 lbs.), and Joe Pacitti (152 lbs.).

“You look up and down the lineup, and there’s a lot of talent and a lot of guys with experience wrestling at the varsity level,” said Caffelle. “There are higher expectations for this group and no longer do we just want to try and be competitive. We want to go for the league title, and I think this year we have the depth to make a really good run at it.”

This week, the Bulldogs (2-2) were due to face their first big test with a home meet against Mansfield (5-1) on Wednesday. Then it’s on to the annual Lowell Holiday Tournament next Tuesday and Wednesday before resuming dual meet action against Milford on January 4.

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