BY CHRIS MASCARO
Welcome back from the Holiday hiatus. High school wrestling took four days off for Christmas, but now it's time to get back in the saddle.
Some of the events today include the Uniondale Duals and the Half Hollow Hills East and Sachem North Tournaments. All three are two-day events.
Also Longwood is upstate at the Cicero-North Syracuse Tournament, which ends tomorrow. And Glen Cove, Ward Melville and West Islip all host tournaments tomorrow.
But the two most anticipated events until the new year are the Long Island Challenge and the Massapequa Tournament.
The L.I. Challenge begins tomorrow with two pools, one at Islip, the other at MacArthur. On Saturday at Islip, the last place teams from each pool will wrestle for seventh place and the third place teams will battle for fifth at 10:00 a.m. Then at 12:30 p.m. the second place teams will wrestle for third, and the top teams will compete in the final. The field for this year's event is stacked, with arguably the top programs in Nassau and Suffolk in Plainedge and Brentwood. MacArthur and Islip make it four teams from Newsday's Top 10 that will be there.
Pool A will be at Islip tomorrow and consists of Islip, MacArthur, Farmingdale and Miller Place. Pool B at MacArthur will be Plainedge, Brentwood, Sayville and MacArthur's "B" squad.
At Massapequa, Hauppauge, Wantagh and the host Chiefs will be the top teams, with Bethpage, Connetquot, Long Beach, Monroe-Woodbury (Section IX), and Syosset also in the field.
Should be a great weekend of wrestling. See you out there, and stay plugged in to all the results on newsday.com, and right here on our wrestling blog.