SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP — For the most part, another high school wrestling season has gone into memory banks of participant’s minds.

For some, the hard work paid off handsomely with trips down the tournament trails against tougher opponents than they faced locally. For others, things didn’t get that far, but the work they put in still meant a lot to each of them.

Routines of everyday practice have all gone by the wayside for all of them. That showed a bit Friday night at Lakeside High School as many area seniors, coaches and fans, gathered to celebrate the 12th annual Star Beacon-Mike Scully Senior Classic.

Several coaches were on hand, either to support their grapplers one more time, or for other reasons, but they all had a good time.

Greg Stolfer of Edgewood has become a fixture both on the mats as a coach and by having his woodworking classes at the school building beautiful benches which are raffled off to raise funds for Star Beacon scholarships.

“I just want to take time to thank the Star Beacon for having this great night,” he said. “It’s a great time to see the kids wrestle again and have fun doing it while promoting the sport and raising money for scholarships, too. It takes a lot of work, and I really enjoy being part of it.”

Most of the wrestlers have gained a few pounds through normal eating habits again after a season of watching little put in front of them on a plate. Practices no longer take up much of their time unless they are participating in some spring sport. But with wrestling being a total individual sport where the outcome rests solely on what each man does one-on-one against the other, competition still fuels each wrestler.

The fans who came out to Lakeside were treated to some dandy matches as local seniors from Lakeside, Geneva, Jefferson, Conneaut, Pymatuning Valley, Grand Valley, Edgewood and Madison hit the mats one more time for local fans.

Of the nine matches contested, there was only a single pin, that by Conneaut’s two-time state qualifier Patrick Sanford, who caught Geneva heavyweight David Leishman in an awkward move and finished their match in 1:23.

Sanford, one of the top wrestlers in the county for two years, enjoyed being part of the Scully Classic.

“I didn’t do anything different tonight,” Sanford said. “My future plans right now are just looking at joining the Army. I haven’t talked with a recruiter yet, but that’s what I’m looking at right now. I wish I had finished higher at state this year, but I didn’t wrestle as well as I could have.”

The Conneaut pin record holder with 114 in his career, also capped his career, which began in the Conneaut Cougar program as a six year old, with 143 triumphs, finishing seventh in the state at 215 the last two seasons.

A sign of things to come came in the first match of the night as Madison’s Josh Burr and Keegan Maple of Jefferson went back and forth into overtime, where Burr got a takedown early and rolled it into a near fall to claim a 13-9 win.

Cody Williams of Geneva and Bobby Ledenican of Lakeside battled through two scoreless periods before Williams recorded a reversal in the last period and a near fall for a 4-0 victory.

R.J. Riley of Grand Valley and Dillon Hutton of Edgewood went down to the wire in their match before Riley pulled off a reversal at the buzzer to solidify a 9-6 win.

After Sanford stopped Leishman, Thomas Butryn of Edgewood, fresh off a solid sixth-place performance at the Division II state tournament took part in a battle royale with Madison’s Matt Turek. A third-period escape by Turek earned a 4-3 win.

Butryn capped his outstanding season with that match.

“We just showed up tonight and had fun,” he said. “We did what we wanted to do without taking it too seriously. We were here to have fun with teammates and make friendships with guys we know from other schools.

“I’m looking at some schools for wrestling and also cross country, but nothing is set in stone as of yet.”

Grand Valley’s James Anderson recorded a takedown and near fall in the last minute of his match with Connor Dickey of Lakeside for a 12-6 triumph.

Nolan Vance of Lakeside tallied a reversal and near fall in the last minute of his match with Quaid Traves of Geneva for a 11-4 win. That set the stage for the second match of the night for Ledenican of Lakeside, who used an escape, takedown and near fall in the second period of his match with Stephen Ball of Edgewood to open a lead which led to a 12-6 victory.

The last match of the night saw the fanciest move of the night from Jacob Brown of Pymatuning Valley, who pulled off a sweet bicycle move against Keegan Maple of Jefferson, in his second match of the night, as Brown claimed a solid 8-3 win to end the night’s festivities.

The 360-degree move by Brown didn’t earn him any points in his matchup with Maple, but it brought a lot of smiles to everybody in attendance, capping a night honoring Scully, the late wrestling guru of the Beacon who made the sport a top priority for many area readers during his days with the Star Beacon. Not many fans enjoyed the sport as much as Scully, and his efforts to promote wrestling in this county were monumental.

Geneva coach Dwight Fritz saw his matmen compete again on the mats, and he had a chance to renew his own acquaintances with the mats during intermission in a match with his young son, D.W. Fritz’s daughters were there to watch it all, too, no doubt looking for ways to battle their little brother on the home fronts.

Jefferson coach Tom Avsec totally enjoyed the whole night while talking about the status of county wrestling.

“There is some great competition in meets like this,” he said. “The kids get fired up when they hear that whistle sound to start the match.

“Overall, wrestling could be more solid in the county if we had some league competitions like we did in the NEC, with dual matches and the league tournament, but things have changed. Individual schools are doing better, but interest is down because we don’t have that big time matchup anymore. We really do have some good junior programs, though, so we’re in good shape.”

For now, it’s left to wrestlers like Butryn and Sanford and Butryn to represent the country well at higher levels. It’s left to boys like the other participants who shared the mats with them in the Scully Classic to help keep the fires burning in the area.