Hudson Fox Finishes Wrestling Career at New York State Championships

Hudson Fox finished his wrestling career at the New York State Division II Championships at MVP Arena in Albany this weekend.

The Southampton senior, seeded 18th in the 170-pound weight class, lost his opening-round match in a major decision to Saranac junior Landen Gadway. Fox took Gadway down with his patented headlock takedown in the second period, but couldn’t land the pin, much to the surprise of his head coach, Lester Ware. Gadway, who went on to place seventh in the state, won the match, 22-8.

After Fox pinned Canton senior Graham Rozier in 33 seconds to keep his run alive, he was eliminated from the tournament in his next match via technical fall to Granville/Whitehall senior Jaxon Torres, who finished eighth in the state.

“[Torres] had a fireman’s dump that Hudson just could not stop,” Ware said. “He took him down with it three or four times. Sometimes you run into a move where it may not be the greatest move, but if you haven’t seen it a lot in competition, it’s almost like it’s indefensible, and that was the case with Hudson.”

One thing that Fox and Ware took maybe just a little bit of solace in was the fact that he did win one more match than Mattituck senior Luca Siricio, who lost both of his matches at states. Fox had picked up Sirico off the opening whistle of their county championship match two weeks prior, and an awkward mat return allowed Sirico to quickly pin Fox, who Ware said was “a hair away from placing,” at states, had he stuck Gadway with that headlock.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some,” Ware said of being at the state tournament, “but it’s a lesson for all of the kids that if they can get up there, they can do it. Especially after watching kids like Bronco Campsey from East Hampton and Cyrus [Gutierrez-Tyler] from Hampton Bays. Now the kids know, the gauntlet has been thrown, and I wouldn’t be surprised that the next kid that goes up there for us should do something.”

A simple look at the records of some of the wrestlers, just in the 170-pound Division II bracket alone, showed that some wrestlers had close to 50 matches just this season alone. While he didn’t wrestle in the least amount of matches, Fox only managed 22 matches going into this weekend’s tournament. Therein lies some of the problems for Fox, Ware agreed, who missed out on about two weeks worth of matches, some of which were out of his hands.

Fox also tried to be a dual athlete this winter as part of the boys indoor track team, which took him away from wrestling for at least one weekend. It has left Ware thinking about what could have been with Fox, but the head coach is ready to move on to next season.

“Next year, we should be back at the Eastern States Classic,” he said. “It’s been a while since we’ve been there. We just have to go to more matches, period, and we have to be prepared to wrestle and take some tough losses. If our kids want to get better, I think they have to be in at least 40 matches by the time the postseason comes around.”

Although Fox and other wrestlers such as Jackson Garcia are graduating, Ware said he still has a good core returning, led by Liam Squires, who is only a year removed from being a state qualifier. A tough year in making weight sort of derailed Squires’s season.

“I expect Liam to bounce back in a big way,” he said. “He had 24 wins and was probably in the wrong weight class. He spent a lot of time trying to make weight instead of preparing.”

Ware also said David Lewin was probably his most improved wrestler this season, and he’s in line for a very busy offseason wrestling with the Vougar Honors Wrestling club in Syosset. Then there’s Edward Gaspariano and Cruz Espinosa, who were both All-County as well as freshmen, and the Morales Trio, Stephen and David and their cousin Ernesto, all of who showed some great promise this season, Ware said.