Pleasantville Youth Wrestling Continues to Impress

The Pleasantville Youth Wrestling team is turning heads in the region's competitive scene this season, coming off its first home tournament in its eight-year history and high placing in the Section One Youth Championships.

The program, part of the Dads Club of Pleasantville, has been led by Head Coach Lenny Balducci for the last four years.

"We had 42 total kids sign up this year," Balducci said, which is almost double the involvement compared to 2010, and significantly higher than last year's 33-34 athletes.

Balducci headed up the youth tournament on Sunday, Jan. 22, which attracted teams from Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties. See here for results from the tournament.

"That is the first tournament period that Pleasantville ever hosted—youth or varsity," he revealed.

The village's youth team, which is open to first through sixth graders (ages five to 11) practices two days a week during the winter sports season and engages in scrimmages and tournaments throughout the four-month period.

"Practices goes through mid-March and tournaments go through the end of March," said Balducci.

Most recently, the team competed in the Section One Youth Championships at John Jay High School and placed fourth out of 33 teams.

"We did great as a team," said Balducci. "We were the only small school to place."

Individually, here is a breakdown of how the athletes fared in their brackets:

Len Balducci – 3rd

Michael Balducci – 1st

James Blasdell – DNP

Ryan Challice – DNP

Jack Collins – 1st

Colin Finnegan – DNP

Dylan Hoxhaj – 2nd

Michael La Capria – DNP

Luke LaMagna – 2nd

Chris Macca – 5th

Dominick Matica – 4th

Ryan Miller – DNP

Nicolas Paternostro – 4th

Christian Perlleshi – DNP

Michale Perlleshi – 3rd

Victor Perlleshi – 5th

Jordan Rosen – 1st

Michael Yamada – 5th

Jacob Zednik – 5th

"That tournament was a qualifier for the kids state tournament, which is being held March 2-3 on Bay Shore, Long Island," explained Balducci.

While many of the athletes qualified for the event, the coach is wary about bringing them all into an environment with a higher level atmosphere.

During the season, Balducci said he is careful to stick to three coaching principles: "Work hard, try their best and most important is to have fun," he said.

"If they have fun, it's not about winning and losing. I don't actually promote winning and losing," he added.

There are four more tournaments in Ossining, Carmel, Brewster and Somers coming up this season.

Balducci, meanwhile, has set long term goals for the program and is focused on building and retaining athletes.

He hopes to make the Pleasantville tournament an annual event and continue growing involvement and raising the level of skill in the program.

"I'm trying to get it to the next level, basically," he explained, "and hopefully feed for the varsity someday."