Seniors Danny Seidita and Ze’ev Lailari paced the George Mason wrestling team last Friday and Saturday at the NOVA Classic wrestling tournament held at Fairfax High School. Seidita (120 lbs) finished in third place and Lailari (160 lbs) in fourth at Northern Virginia’s premier early season tournament. In other action, senior Alborz Alaedini (140 lbs) went 2-2 and appeared to be ready to shake his early season slow start, while Max Aifer (126 lbs), Jack Stricker (132 lbs), Jake Eye (182 lbs), and Connor Rhodes (195 lbs) each went 1-2.

Seidita began his weekend by winning all three of his matches Friday. In the opening round he pinned Trevor Marable of Fauquier in 5:45, following that with a fall over Joey Nowak of Centerville in 2:45. He capped his Friday with a 5-3 overtime decision over Max Benitos of Lee to advance to Saturday’s semifinals where he dropped a 14-6 decision to Angel Rios of Broad Run. In the wrestle backs Seidita defeated Darcy Gomez of Bishop Ireton 7-0 and Michael Villalobos of Fauquier 4-0 to claim third place.

Lailari earned his fourth place medal by starting with a first round win over Marco Meese of Madison, pinning him in 0:51. After a second round 5-1 loss to Tyler Love of Centerville, Lailari reeled off five straight victories before falling again to Love by a score of 6-2 in the third place match. Lailari had three pins among his six tournament victories.

As a team the Mustangs finished with 52 points, good for 24th in the field of 32 teams.

“I am pretty pleased with our effort this weekend” said Coach Bryan Harris. “A number of our younger wrestlers came away with wins, while the highlights of the weekend were the two medals earned by Danny and Ze’ev. As a team finishing 24th out of 32 may not seem great at first glance but considering we were the only Single A team there it’s pretty good. Overall it was a very long but successful weekend.”