![\"Tottenville](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/STURZWR2UBCGLNCJALLJ7T4HGY.jpg\")
The Tottenville varsity wrestling team poses with their championship banner after winning the PSAL 2A City title over James Madison on Feb. 3, 2026.John Cichon<\/p>\nQUEENS, N.Y.\u2014 The Tottenville Pirates brought the PSAL 2A wrestling title back to Staten Island on Tuesday evening, as coach John Cichon\u2019s squad edged defending champion James Madison, 34\u201333, in a thrilling showdown at Grover Cleveland High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels amazing, obviously. And it\u2019s through the hard work that the kids put in,\u201d Cichon said following the victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to go all year round\u2014we try to run a program. It\u2019s not just a winter sport for us. And we have the support of our administration, the parents, and the community,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
It was especially sweet for Tottenville to reclaim the title from James Madison\u2014the team that eliminated the Pirates in last year\u2019s semifinals before going on to win it all\u2014while the Pirates had beaten Madison in the 2024 championship, adding another chapter to the rivalry between two excellent programs that have the highest respect for one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like trying to keeping up with the Joneses; Steve [Santimaurio] is a great coach, and his kids are wrestling all year round too,\u201d Cichon explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have coaches that care, and they\u2019re willing to wrestle all season, all year round with them. You\u2019ll see Steve at tournaments all season and in the offseason, just like you\u2019ll see me at tournaments all offseason. That\u2019s really what sparks it\u2014it\u2019s what makes the difference in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
While numerous individual wins from Craig Monda (110 lbs), Steven Ruggerio (118), Tristan Levin (126), Jake Padilla (165), Anthony Moog (175), and Adel Kiswani (190) propelled Tottenville to a razor-thin victory, Cichon especially credited Ruggerio\u2014competing in his first match of the year after needing to sit out\u2014with sparking the team win, along with sophomore Moog (175), whom Cichon said wrestled \u201cthe match of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the first time he ever made weight at 175, in addition to his first time being in the varsity lineup and wrestling a senior. For him to have a major decision victory over him was the turning point,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n
While the victory is certainly sweet for the Pirates, with the NYSPHSAA State Championships and plenty more to wrestle for still coming up, Cichon admitted that \u201cthe first thing I thought after the match was that we\u2019re not done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tottenville varsity wrestling team poses with their championship banner after winning the PSAL 2A City title over James Madison on Feb. 3, 2026.John Cichon<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is great, but we have Friday. We have Boroughs on Friday, and only the top three from the borough make it to the city tournament. And if we\u2019re going to beat Madison again, we need everyone qualifying on Friday at Boroughs. Our borough is the toughest borough, in my opinion, in the city, so now the goal is staying focused but not taking this for granted,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
The Pirates will look to continue to leave their mark on this season as they gear up for States, which will be contested on Feb. 27-28 at the MVP Arena in Albany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QUEENS, N.Y.\u2014 The Tottenville Pirates brought the PSAL 2A wrestling title back to Staten Island on Tuesday evening,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-123071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}