Saturday, February 15, 2020

Wrestling: North, High Point dialed in for state titles

Wrestlers almost always recall their losses, whether it's team or individual. For High Point, last year's disappointment in the Group 2 final -- a 46-26 loss to South Plainfield -- remains a driving force this season.

"It will stick with us forever, but I think with how hard we've worked this year and how much time we've put in, especially our seniors, I think we can come out on top," senior ace Billy Talmadge said prior to the Wildcats' 44-19 win over Westwood in the North 1, Group 2 final on Friday night that gave the program a Sussex County-best 28th sectional championship and its fourth straight appearance in the Group 2 championships on Sunday at Toms River North High School.

High Point won a 4th straight section title. (Rhonda Gaccione)
High Point (13-4), which is seeking its second state title in three years (fourth in Group 2) and its sixth overall, will face Caldwell (18-5), while South Plainfield (18-7) squares off against West Deptford (20-7) in the other semifinal at 2 p.m. The winners will meet in the title match at 7 p.m.

In all, four teams representing the Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex area will be in action when the Group championships commence, starting with the semifinals in Groups 4 and 3 at 9 a.m. North Hunterdon (21-0), which advanced with a 37-12 win over Phillipsburg in the North 2, Group 4 final, looks to complete the program's first unbeaten season with its first state championship since 2002.

The semifinals in Group 1 and the two Non-Public title matches are set to follow at 11:30 a.m., with the semis in Group 2 and 5 slated for 2 p.m. The finals for Groups 1, 3 and 4 will be at 5 p.m., with the Group 2 and 5 finals scheduled for 7 p.m.

Delaware Valley (18-7) bids for its first championship in Group 1 after winning its eighth in Group 2 in 2017. The Terriers look to get past Point Pleasant Beach in the semis to set up a likely showdown against perennial champion Paulsboro in the final.
Pope John (11-7), coming off winning its third consecutive sectional championship, looks to avenge last season's Non-Public B title loss in a rematch with Camden Catholic.
South Plainfield (18-7), which graduated the bulk of last season's title team, has won four consecutive state championships, including three in a row in Group 3 from 2016-18. The Tigers, who own a 10-3 lead in the all-time series against High Point dating to 2010 -- 5-1 in postseason matchups -- beat the 'Cats, 26-24, in the Group 2 final in 2010, before the Sussex County school turned the tables with a 30-28 win the following season in two of the most memorable matches here. Veteran coach John Gardner, who is 5-5 overall in state finals (3-1 in Group 2), said his team knows what's at stake on Sunday.

"The reality of it is, we haven't mentioned [last year's finals loss] once," Gardner said. "I know [our kids] think about it. I know that's what motivated them to work all summer. So we've never had to speak of that. We've been trying to get some other guys on the team in line to put ourselves in a spot to get back there."

The road to getting back has not been an easy one. High Point once again has dealt with a myriad of injuries, including the loss of talented freshman Shane Woolf (138-145), who sustained a season-ending knee issue early last month, that resulted in multiple lineup configurations On the plus side, the returns of juniors Alex Buchwald (9-3 at 160-170), who will be a key wrestler this weekend and for 2020-21, and Nick Douma (126-132), give the 'Cats flexibility.

Down low, freshman Roman Citro (13-5 at 106), sophomore Clayton Utter (21-4 at 113) and junior Josh Gervey (25-4 at 132), who was among the heroes in the team's Group 2 title run in 2018, have come up big all season, along with sophomore Brian Soldano (25-1 at 160), a state title contender.

But it's the tough losses to Howell, Southern, Phillipsburg and North Hunterdon -- all NJWWA Top 20 teams -- that probably have gotten the 'Cats to this point as much as anything else. Gardner said in the preseason that an ambitious schedule could result in a few defeats, but none that would ultimately hinder his team's state title quest.

"Coach [Gardner] always gives us a tough schedule so that we wrestle the tough teams," said senior Devon Liebl (29-3 at 126). "It gets us better as a team, so I feel like we're ready to wrestle all these teams right now. We just look at it as another way to get us better. Learn from our losses and make ourselves better."

For Talmadge (32-0 at 138), whose decision in the final bout sealed a 30-25 victory against Raritan in the Group 2 final in 2018, and Liebl, along with fellow senior PJ Soldano (21-9 at 182), this is the most important match of their careers.

"I just want to get my revenge," said Liebl, who is sitting on 97 career wins.

Talmadge, a returning fifth-place finisher in the state tournament, improved to 132-26 overall in the sectional final win -- passing Gardner (131-8-1 from 1987-90) for sixth place on the school's all-time list.

"It's pretty exciting," Talmadge said. "It's really awesome keeping up a great tradition of tough wrestling and working hard."

North on a mission

Moments after its dominating performance in the North 2, Group 4 sectional final, North Hunterdon was ready for the next step -- capturing the program's first state title in 18 years and an anticipated rematch against reigning Group 4 champion Kingsway, which dropped a 40-21 decision when the teams met in the Boresch Duals title match on Jan. 4.

North has won four state titles -- all in Group 3.
"We're happy tonight. Tomorrow, we go back to work," said Nate Fossett, one of five starting seniors for the Lions, who became the first North team to beat P'burg twice in a season. "We just get better every day. I'll worry about Kingsway when they're in front of us. We can't let a previous victory dictate how we wrestle. It's a different team now. We're a different team now."

How big was that first win over Phillipsburg -- 30-24 on the road back on Jan. 15 -- as far as giving North, which had dropped 17 straight in the series since 2007 from a confidence standpoint and just getting to Toms River?

"That was huge," said third-year coach Chris Hrunka, whose team will open against North 1 champ Mount Olive, which gave coach Sean Smyth his 300th win and the program's second sectional title on Friday, in the semifinals. "That [first] win and being back here ... it was tight there and we didn't wrestle great there."

North, which undoubtedly features the most balanced public school lineup in the state, got an early boost from its talented upper weights as junior James Holder set the tone with his 8-6 win over P'burg sophomore Nate Zastowny, a Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex Tournament champion at 160 who scored a 10-8 win -- on the strength of a shin whizzer -- in their previous dual-meet matchup.

"That was a huge win," Hrunka said. "In the past there's been a couple times where he struggled for us in a big setting, and he came through this time. We've been drilling that high-crotch to a double to stop that shin whizzer tilt that [Zastowny] hits a hundred of and we stayed out of that. [Holder] gave him eight points with that last time. He lost, 10-8. You stay out of that, you win."

Another key win came from freshman Alex Uryniak, who also avenged an earlier loss with a 3-2 decision against Jacob Wicks, whose father is Del Val legend and two-time state champ Jamie Wicks, at 195, while fellow ninth-grader Logan Wadle's major at 106 pounds capped North's six-bout run to open the match. Adding to the Hunterdon County connection is Wadle's father, Rudy, who was a three-time district and region champion for the Lions.

"Alex is the better wrestler. That's what it is," Hrunka said. "Wicks is a smart wrestler. Got to give that kid credit. He wins a lot of matches without doing a lot of things. He's just really disciplined at what he does. He keeps moving forward and hand fighting. Alex is just a better wrestler. He's poised for a freshman in this environment against a kid who he had lost to. He didn't seem nervous going out and had a little swagger of I know I can beat this kid."

Kingsway (18-3), which will take on Brick Memorial in the other Group 4 semifinal, is a different team than it's been most of this season. The Dragons appear to now have their full lineup with the return of region qualifier Cheney Kinner, who had missed most of the year following a preseason automobile accident, along with state qualifier Finnegan McFadden, who wrestled at the Boresch Duals but had been sidelined recently due to an injury.

"We haven't been looking ahead," said Hrunka, who noted in January that Kingsway really didn't attempt to maneuver its lineup in that first meeting. "We've got some info on them. They've got all of their guys back it seems. They're going to be a tough team to beat. I think they've got to move around us. We don't have to do much. If you have 14 good wrestlers, you don't need to do anything. If you move, you sacrifice stuff. Everyone is good size for our weights. We are pretty big at our weights. Why change it? If it works, make other people make big drastic moves."

As for Kingsway having the advantage of having been here before, Hrunka said his team should be just fine after wrestling in big events like the Boresch Duals and Patriot Duals, which included High Point and reigning Group 3 champion West Essex.

"I think [Phillipsburg] was the match they were really nervous about," Hrunka said. "I think [the sectional final win] is going to catapult them into a really confident weekend. The venue [RJWBarnabas Arena] is completely different. We're going to have a lot of fans there, but it's not a packed gym [like at home]. Every time we've wrestled this year in that type of setting, those team tournaments, that was training for this. We've done it before and they've always responded really well because they just wrestle for each other. I think they'll do it again."
Posted by Mike Weilamann at 5:28 PM

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