Saturday, January 11, 2020

23rd Annual Peckham Wrestling Tournament

It is hard to believe that it's been 23 years since legendary CHS Wrestling coach, Tom Bartosek hosted the first annual Peckham Wrestling Tournament here at CHS. Today, wrestlers from eleven area schools converged on CHS to participate in this annual showcase of local high school wrestling talent. Our Bulldogs faced some of the best wrestlers in the region today.

Cillian Collins in action in Peckham
Peckham was a legend of Massachusetts Wrestling and is a member of the Massachusetts Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame as well. The tournament has grown and evolved over the years and has also become a celebration of coach Bartosek- who is really the "father of wrestling" in Canton.

For the past decade, the Bulldogs have been coached by Brian Caffelle- one of Bartosek's most impressive wrestlers back in his wrestling days. Caffelle has done an amazing job in keeping this local tradition alive and thriving up until this very day- the 23rd year.

Participating in this year's tournament were Canton, Stoughton, Norton, Xaverian, Sharon, Milton, Mansfield, Randolph, Southeastern Regional, New Bedford, and Davies Tech.
Thanks to EM Duggan
for our amazing mat

Advancing to the Finals in their weight classes for the Bulldogs were:

- Zach Peters who finished as runner-up at 113
and
- Eddie Marinilli who finished as CHAMPION at 152

Today's tournament featured our two state-of-the-art Wrestling mats. One which was donated by EM Duggan Company and the other through the generous donations of so many including major support from the CHS Athletic Booster Club.

As Athletic Director, I can truly say that there is no other single athletic event held at CHS each year that is as impressive, competitive and ambitious as this annual tradition. It exudes teamwork, sportsmanship, hard work, perseverance, positive culture, tradition and the positive nature of competition- all in honor of some great role models.  What else can you ask from a high school athletic event/experience?

The Bulldogs hit the mat again on Wednesday, January 15th as the host Foxboro at 7:00pm.