Lanzi wins gold

Giuseppi Lanzi overcame a loss in his opening match to claim a gold medal at 143 pounds. John Paris, won all four of his preliminary matches, but fell in the 178-pound gold medal match to claim a silver.

"It's a pretty good accomplishment and it shows how much our guys work in the offseason," Paris said. "That's why we've been so good the last couple of years."

Lanzi completed his comeback from a first-match defeat to Brian Guilfoyle and earned his gold with a three-period win over Western's Jonathan Roberts.

"I had to work that much harder to come back and win this tournament," Lanzi said. "You just have to go even harder than you normally would go."

After his tournament-opening loss, Lanzi won his next two matches to finish Thursday with a 2-1 record. Then, he won his final preliminary match Friday morning to finish first in his pool giving him a chance at the gold.

He took full advantage early in the first period as Lanzi pushed Roberts outside the circle to take a 1-0 lead and then scored two more points on a takedown. He added two more points to finish the first with a 5-0 win, giving him a 1-0 lead in the match.

"I had to wrestle my match and not his match," Lanzi said. "You have to take him out of his game and wrestle how you want to wrestle."

Lanzi got away from "his match" in the second period as he and Roberts each earned a point by pushing the other out of bounds and finished the second period tied 1-1 before Lanzi got things going again in the third.

Lanzi pushed Roberts out of bounds for his first point of the third period and scored another two points on a takedown.

"I was just controlling his head and controlling his hands," Lanzi said. "He can't make a shot if he doesn't have his hands."

Lanzi scored his final points on a takedown at the boundary and shed some tears of excitement and victory as the final seconds on the clock ticked away.

"This feels awesome," Lanzi said. "I've been working hard and training hard this summer. I've only had, tops, a week break so far. I've been training every day, getting better, getting stronger and getting faster. It's an awesome feeling to win this."

Paris had a much more difficult time in his 178-pound gold medal bout as he matched up with Long Island's Josue Mendez and neither one was able to get any kind of advantage for both periods.

Each scored a point by getting the other out of bounds in the first period and after spending most of the second stalemated, Mendez scored his only point when he worked Paris near the boundary and pushed him out for the score.

"It was a different style," Paris said. "Usually in folkstyle, you have to be more aggressive and that's what happened. I was a little too aggressive in the first period and he ended up scoring a point on me and that helped him win the period and set the tone for the rest of the match."

Unlike Lanzi, who lost his first match of the tournament before coming back to win, Paris won all four of his preliminary matches before running into Mendez in the finals.

He went 3-0 Thursday and defeated Western's Nicholas Baxter 8-3, 6-0 in his morning match."I feel pretty good, but I would rather have the gold," Paris said. "This kid is pretty experienced at freestyling and he's a pretty tough wrestler. He took fourth at states in high school and at freestyle."