Spring Hill club takes wrestling title

By BRANT JAMES

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 12, 2000

SPRING HILL -- Wrestling, and winning, never goes out of season at Springstead, and that gave the Spring Hill Wrestling Club something it never has had in 20 years of competition at the Sunshine State Games -- a team gold medal.

Buttressed by 12 individual championships -- and double golds in freestyle and Greco-Roman by Matt Booker, Anthony and Gerard DeCristofaro and Mike Combs -- the Spring Hill club added a new line to its formidable resume.

"The kids were just on fire," said club and Springstead coach Bob Levija. "It was a great tournament for us, just a neat time all weekend.

"We've always done decent, but this time, you could just feel we were all together."

Booker won both disciplines in the cadet 143-pound division while Gerard DeCristofaro won in the junior 143 division. Older brother Anthony dominated in the junior 220 bracket, and Mike Combs swept through the novice class at 130 pounds.

Freestyle is wrestling as seen in high schools while Greco-Roman allows for no attacks below the waist.

"It was a good tournament because there was a lot of competition, a lot of kids I hadn't wrestled before," Booker said.

Anthony DeCristofaro saw familiar faces on the path to the medal stand, however, including Hudson's Class A 215-pound state champ, Robb Philippus. DeCristofaro, who beat Philippus twice in the high school season, beat him again at the Games.

"It was a good weekend," DeCristofaro said. "We had a lot of people do real well."

For his brother, the hardest part might have been making weight. Gerard DeCristofaro wrestled at 130 pounds during the high school season but has put on bulk in the off-season.

An in-season-style training session enabled him to feel comfortable at 143 pounds for the Sunshine State Games.

"I was real happy with how I wrestled," Gerard DeCristofaro said.

"I thought I wrestled well. Making the weight was not that bad once I got into real heavy training."

Nate Booker won a gold in cadet 167 pounds and a silver in freestyle, as did Fabien Lewars in cadet 112. David Kachiroubas won the gold in the cadet 121-pound class in freestyle and was second in Greco-Roman.

Billy Combs won a gold in cadet 132.

Jason Booker, an AAU national champion, won a gold in freestyle in the schoolboy 75-pound class. Dustin Soto was second in midget 50-pound freestyle, and Warren Hendery was third in cadet 121-pound freestyle.

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