ALBANY–This weekend, February 27-28, the NYSPHSAA State Wrestling Championships took place at the Times Union Center in Albany. Almost 500 wrestlers from all over NY State were present at this event. For the first time Galway High School placed not one, not two, but three great wrestlers in the State Championship: Dillan Palaszewski (99 lbs), Jordan Sartin (120 lbs) and Steven Culbert (138 lbs).

This is a great accomplishment for Galway who, unlike bigger schools, had the chance to achieve its goals with more than one wrestler.

“All season long we were working on qualifying three guys for States,” explains Coach Joe Culbert. “We were hoping for three Section 2 Champions, but two guys ended up earning Wild Cards to go to States. I am proud of what they were able to achieve this year.”

Coach Sartin added, “Definitely a great experience being able to qualify three guys to States for your last year of coaching. It was also kind of nice having two of them qualify for the second day and one placing.”

All the three of our wrestlers did an amazing job and two of them advanced to wrestle during the second day of the Championships.

Jordan was in one of the toughest weight class in the tournament, but it was still a great experience for him to earn a trip to the States as a freshman.

Dillan’s extensive year around wrestling prepared him for a tournament of that caliber. Winning his first match on Saturday secured him a top six finish, in fact at the end he won his last match and placed 5th, making Galway really proud.

Unlike his teammates, Steven already went to States last year so he was more familiar with the atmosphere and the competition. He came into the tournament tied for the school win record and after losing his first match with the number 1 seed, he had one more opportunity to break the record. Steven did not disappoint, and won his next two matches, breaking the school record, for not one, but for two wins. “I’ll be working on trying to break the school record, that was established by Kevin Dicerbo 29 years ago, since last season when I got my hundredth win,” says the team captain Steven Culbert. “I had 41 wins this season so that now I have a 157 career wins. I’m proud of our team because it was our goal to beat Duanesburg and be WAC champs and we pretty much we achieved all our goals.”

Galway has to be really proud of its wrestling team and all its wrestlers because of all the goals they achieved during this season.

“Sending three wrestlers to the State tournament was a great way to finish the season with a 22-2 record and winning the league,” says Coach Culbert. “I’m really proud of all the guys on the team and of all the great work they did this season. It was a team effort and we would not have accomplished that without each and every one of them, the managers and the rest of the coaches and staff.”

Similarly, Coach Sartin gave a comment on the overall season: “This was a really good season. The reason for our success was the amount of guys we had in the team that helped us filling almost all the weight classes and we were able to move them around. I’m really proud of all of them.”