Double-entry for Section tournament

This is probably a subject I should have touched on before the Section 9 Division I tournament.

I glanced over the Section 11 (Suffolk County) Division I championship results and saw two Huntington kids wrestled for third place at 103 pounds. Some sections allow teams to enter two wrestlers per weight class in the postseason.

Section 9 does not.

Monroe-Woodbury has a case like Huntington’s. Monroe-Woodbury sophomore Mike Vespa is no doubt Section 9’s best 103-pounder. Vespa won his second section title on Saturday by pin. But Monroe-Woodbury freshman Vaquan Kelly might be the second-best 103-pounder in the section. Kelly wrestled a lot of matches when Vespa was hurt earlier in the season. I believe Kelly’s record is 17-4. But Kelly was watching the section tournament.

The situation takes me back to 2004 Valley Central graduate Sean Bauer, who waited until his junior year to wrestle in the section tournament. It wasn’t that Bauer wasn’t good enough. He was wrestling behind Lou Ruggirello, Scott Prutzman and Steve Valastro at Valley Central. When Bauer finally got his chance, he won the 112-pound section title as a junior and advanced to the state final as a senior, losing to five-time state champ Troy Nickerson.

Sure, these cases might happen once a season. Unfortunately, a section-finalist, caliber wrestler is left on the outside looking in.