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The Baymen's Oskar Ramirez has made an impressive run through League VII despite having injured his left shoulder in December. Photos by Brett Mauser

Southampton - It would be the way it used to be - every team, regardless of size, vying for one solitary county championship. Every wrestler, regardless of from where they came, grappling with the very best Suffolk County had to offer. If all went right, they advanced; if it did not, they nevertheless returned to the center of the mat to shake their opponent's hand.

If Suffolk County converted to a regional format, Pete DeTore and others would have to place among the top five at counties to advance to the Long Island championships.

Much of wrestling hasn't changed one iota since its inception. The scoring, the rules, the tenacity, they've all remained mostly the same over the years. However, in 2004, New York State ruled to split counties into two divisions - Division I for large schools and Division II for small schools. The debate began almost immediately questioning why it was necessary. Now, as Division II has slowly shrunk to just seven teams, with some schools having jumped ship to join Division I, the chatter is more fierce than ever: to be two or not to be two?

If the coaches at Hampton Bays and Southampton are afraid of getting stepped on by the larger schools, they certainly aren't showing it.

"I'm in favor of one tournament," Hampton Bays Coach Rafael Lievano said. "I always have been. You can win a county championship. It's just much harder. We all see the same competition now. It's nice for the kids to go upstate, but there's something to be said about Division I guys when they go upstate."

Southampton's Ryan McCready agrees wholeheartedly.

"A wrestler is a wrestler is a wrestler," said McCready, a 2002 graduate of Shoreham-Wading River. "If you want to be the best, you have to work with the best and train with the best. It's kind of silly to have a county made up of seven teams. If there were more Division II schools, fine, but to have seven schools in one division and - (46) in the other just doesn't make sense."

The gradually disappearing division has sparked discussion in wrestling circles as to whether it's worth dicing the talent pool. Coaches have voiced their opinion, some louder than others. Then the unpredictable economy took a nosedive and the sports higher-ups had to halt their discussions for more changes, which have included establishing a Long Island championship to act as the gateway to the state championships. While they deliberate, there's always room for debate.

Southampton's Julius Anglickas hopes to improve on his sixth-place finish at last year's Division II state championships.

Two Become One
Suffolk first split its pool of teams into two divisions for the 2004 county championships. That year, there were 11 teams competing for the Division II crown. Since then, five have either graduated to Division I because of their enrollment or opted out of the Division II bracket to compete at the higher level. Teams that opt out commit to two years at Division I, terms to which Bayport-Blue Point most recently agreed to last year. What's left is a seven-team field - Southampton, Hampton Bays, Center Moriches, Port Jefferson, McGann-Mercy, Babylon and recently revived McGann-Mercy.

Section XI Chairman Bob Panariello, who is the athletic director for the Islip School District, said that the two-division set-up "is here for a while." However, he indicated that nothing in the rules would prevent the remaining seven Division II teams from committing to Division I, thus making it so the county would not have representation at the state championships. To argue against stepping up to D-1, he indicated that teams in the past have gained valuable experience - and prestige - by competing against the top Division II teams at states. One of those teams, John Glenn, is among the favorites for this year's Division I county title despite coming from League VI.

The third-place finisher at 96 pounds last year, Mariner eighth-grader Nick Alessandrini is hoping to take the top spot this year.

This year's Division I county championships will take place Feb. 13-14 at Hofstra University. The Division II tournament will hold its first day of action at Center Moriches High School before joining the Division I wrestlers in Hempstead for the semifinals and finals. Although he'd prefer the one tournament, McCready can live with the existing format. However, he won't stand for his wrestlers being treated differently. At the annual pre-season meeting at Longwood High, Division II coaches voted on whether they'd prefer to compete alongside the Division I wrestlers at counties or to hold their entire tournament separate at Center Moriches. For McCready, the answer was easy.

"I didn't like [the proposal for a separate tournament]," he said. "My kids practice real hard. They give everything they have and work as hard - or harder - than anyone on the Island. They may not be the best, but they're in damn good shape and work so hard. Why shouldn't they get to share the spotlight?"

His wrestlers understand the level of competition - "They're not ignorant; it's not like it's a secret," he said. McCready nevertheless feels it's unfair to judge their ability based on their affiliation. Take the Mariners' star, senior Julius Anglickas. Last year's Division II champ at 215 pounds has more than backed up his accolades from 2008. He's taken on all comers and won. Anglickas' only loss this year came to Miller Place's Nick Buonaiuto, the defending Division I county champion at 189 pounds. McCready said that a second county championship would stamp his ticket for Albany but it would also be bittersweet.

Hampton Bays co-captain Tim Jordan is among the contenders in Division II's 135-pound bracket.

"He wants to be the best," McCready said. "He doesn't want to be best in D-II; he wants to be the best in D-I, D-II and New York State. Last year when he won counties, he was happy, but he wanted to wrestle the kids he'd lost to during the year and try to beat them."

While the other leagues in the county host league tournaments that act as qualifiers for the county championships, League VII does not, as it consists of the seven Division II teams. Under a one-division format, presumably League VII would have to qualify its wrestlers for counties through a league tournament.

In this case, the League VII teams would all but forgo the opportunity to win a team championship. Per the NYSPHSAA, a Division II team is classified as a school with 599 or fewer students in grades 9-11, as of 2007. Southampton, for example, has 482; Hampton Bays came in at 411. Meanwhile, Brentwood, which won last year's team title, registered the highest enrollment within that window at 3,826. Twenty-eight schools altogether assemble wrestling teams using student pools twice the size of Southampton's.

For that reason, Lievano, who wrestled at Nassau County stalwart Syosset, admits to being a little torn. He has an average of 25 wrestlers on his team, whereas larger schools have ninth-grade teams of 25 or more.

"It's not impossible, it's just more difficult," Lievano said. "Some of the kids I've had legitimately could place in Division I, and some of our kids have beaten Division I all-county kids. When you're at a school like this, it's just a little bit more difficult to do."

Khomari Moses' uprising in the 171-pound weight class makes him an odds-on favorite to place at Division II counties.

One of the kids who has beaten the odds is Ken Forrest, the Hampton Bays heavyweight who finished fourth in 2003, the most recent year in the one-division format. Five years before that, Jay Bedell was the 130-pound county champion, while John Case took second at 112. They lifted the Baymen to a ninth-place finish in the team standings.

"It's nice for the kids to go upstate, but there's something to be said about Division I guys when they go up there," Lievano said.

Last year, Mike Lloyd won the Division II county title at 160 pounds and advanced upstate. His former teammates, such as Oskar Ramirez and Tim Jordan, are looking to duplicate his result in two weeks.

Conner Bass and Westhampton must fight through the brutally difficult League VI championships before taking their shot at the county title.

Rethinking The System
In an ideal world, all discussions would center around what's best for the thousands of wrestlers in the county. However, economics, which have always been in the picture, are front and center now considering the nation's current economic crisis. Section presidents have discussed everything from wholesale changes to the tournament format to which singlets everyone will wear. At these times, nothing is too small a concern.

An amendment that would essentially settle who reigns on Long Island was all but put into effect when the economy crashed. It has since been tabled until the fiscal situation stabilizes. In that case, though, the top five place-winners from the Nassau County and Suffolk County tournaments would meet in the Long Island championships, with the site of the event alternating every other year. It's likely that for Division I, the top four would advance to states. Panariello did not indicate what would occur for the smaller Division II.

"I think it's a more fair system," said Panariello, a county champ in 1981 and 1982 who went on to coach at Brentwood for 10 years. "It alleviates the situation of a better athlete having a bad day."

Panariello also believes that such a showdown would be a financial boom rather than a burden. Whether that's the case for the rest of New York he can't say positively.

Andrew Foglia and East Hampton wrestle at this weekend's Bob Armstrong Tournament in Port Jefferson before trying their hand at the League VI championships on Feb. 7 in Harborfields.

"I think the draw of a Nassau-Suffolk championship would more than equate any costs," Panariello said. "Like in other sports, we'd be crowning a true Long Island champion. It's a no-brainer that we'd pack the house for one day. There'd be so much quality that people would be there to watch and the gate alone would eliminate any costs that we had."

Thanks to the current wild card system, Suffolk County sent 41 wrestlers to last year's state championships. It's likely that one division would dramatically reduce that number, although if pending legislature passes, as many as 80 Section XI wrestlers could advance past counties. Legislature to institute a regional tournament had all but passed before the economic downturn. All additions to the postseason have since been tabled until the end of the school year. Because NYSPHSAA rules state that changes are to be instituted two seasons in advance, an alteration wouldn't take place until at least the 2010-2011 postseason.

From a wrestling standpoint, Westhampton Beach Head Coach Paul Bass is all for the regional setup. If that falls through, he's staunchly against cutting the field back. "It's the way it should be," said Bass. "As long as we have multiple entries, I think [having regionals] is a good idea. I'm not in favor of having fewer kids go upstate."

Bass, who is the Suffolk County Coaches' Association vice president, cited situations when Suffolk County, regarded as one of elite wrestling regions in the state, flexed its muscles on the big stage. In the 112-pound weight class, Hauppauge's Ken Collado captures counties and then the state championship. Without the wild cards, Suffolk runner-up Nick Meinsen of John Glenn as well as Huntington's Jose Vasquez, who took third, would have been left home; with them, they placed third and fifth at states. In 2007, Islip's Lance Wade was upset in the 152-pound semifinals at counties, earned a bid to Albany, and proceeded to win the state title in impressive fashion.

Also among the cost-cutting measures being deliberated is allowing state qualifiers to wrestle in their school singlets, rather than bearing the customary colors of their county.

Off the mat, the wrinkles that the sports VIPs are attempting to iron out are more major than what is typical. On them, it's status quo for Section XI. One heck of a weekend sits just two weeks away - hundreds of wrestlers, and 15 winners from each division. It's the biggest day on the local wrestling calendar - as usual.

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