Keith Lanfear Photo

CHENANGO COUNTY – Over the course of Friday and Saturday and between two locations, six wrestlers of area earned their automatic bid into the New York State wrestling tournament while 15 others placed in the top six or higher.

The Section IV Championships were held in Watkins Glen. The teams of Norwich, Oxford, Greene and BGAH made their long journey to the school on Friday and finished on Saturday evening. Norwich finished with four wrestlers headed to Albany in two weeks while Bainbridge-Guilford-Afton-Harpursville (BGAH) will be sending two after their finals match wins.

At 99-pounds, Norwich’s Dante Geislinger earned his big to the New York State tournament by dominating his bracket with his 4-0 record. In the finals, he took on Cody Merwin of Walton/Delhi and won by 7-0 decision. In the 99-pound bracket, Geislinger and teammate Andrew Brown matched up yet again for the second week in a row. This time it was a semifinal match that Geislinger took with a tech fall of 15-0.

Brown needed one win to move into the consolation finals. In that match, he was squared up against Tioga’s Mason Welch. Brown moved onto the consolation final match by taking the 2-0 decision over Welch and went on to face Maine-Endwell’s Payton Bennett. By a decision win of 9-3, Brown finished third in the bracket.