Bethpage girls wrestling's Gabrielle Severin pins down 114-pound title at first Nassau championships

Gabrielle Severin has dreamed of this moment since she began wrestling in seventh grade.

The Bethpage junior finally had a chance to be a county champion and capitalized.

Severin pinned Jericho’s Mo Chen in 25 seconds in the 114-pound final of the first Nassau County girls wrestling championships Sunday at Bethpage High School.

The finals took place under the spotlight in the middle of the packed Bethpage gym.

“This is my hometown, so I’ve wrestled under this spotlight before, but never in front of this big of a crowd and never for a county title,” Severin said. “It was amazing. I was so excited.”

She’ll get to wrestle in front of an even bigger crowd at the first official girls wrestling state championship at MVP Arena in Albany on Feb. 27.

Severin was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler, pinning all three of her opponents in a total of one minute. Severin’s father, Sean, is the Nassau girls wrestling coordinator and Bethpage’s coach.

“There’s been a lot of struggles along the way to figure out how we were going to make this a reality for the girls,” Sean Severin said. “To be able to be part of this group and part of helping to build something that I know Gabrielle will be able to remember forever is incredible.”

Bethpage sophomore Jessica Marzano pinned Roosevelt’s Nathaly Fernandez in 1:33 for the 138-pound title. Sean Severin said this is Marzano’s first year wrestling.

“She took to it really quickly,” Sean Severin said. “You can see how fast they can learn and how quickly they can improve. I hope the visibility of this event can help skyrocket the participation in Nassau County, because we’re still kind of in the infancy stages compared to other parts of New York.”

MacArthur senior Gabriella Schechtman pinned Uniondale’s Sabhee Prudhomme in 1:11 for the 145-pound title. Schechtman totaled three pins in 2:19 and added a win by 10-0 technical superiority in 18 seconds.

“It’s awesome to have this opportunity my senior year,” Schechtman said. “This really represents the growth of women’s wrestling, especially on Long Island and in Nassau County. This is my first and last county championship.”

Schechtman was one of four champions from MacArthur. Olivia Rausenberger won the 126-pound title, Taylor Brock won the 132-pound crown and Isabella Steffa was the champ at 165 pounds. MacArthur took second in the team competition with 187.5 points.

“I’m really glad I’ve had the opportunity to be the captain of such an amazing team,” Schechtman said. “We’ve had so much success in our first year and it’s not going to stop. We’re going to keep having county champs and hopefully state champs.”

Led by Keishara Tulloch, who won a 6-3 decision over Long Beach’s Arianna Balsamo for the 152-pound title, Uniondale won the team competition with 212.5 points.

Uniondale has a roster of 30 girls and had 22 competing in Sunday’s tournament.

“What makes it more special is that we did it with only Uniondale girls,” coach Tim Godoy said. “We didn’t have girls from other towns join our team. We did it with a homegrown team . . . All the girls that competed here today, hats off to them.”