Thursday,
January 8, 2014
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Anthony Aiello (top) won in overtime at 145 pounds in the most competitive match of NV/Old Tappan's 51-16 win on the road at Demarest on Wednesday night. |
DEMAREST – In a dual meet between two teams that can fill all 14 weight classes there are always going to be a couple of bouts labeled as toss-ups going in that are going to determine the outcome. On Wednesday night in the matchup between Northern Valley/Old Tappan and Northern Valley/Demarest, all of those bouts that were considered pick-ems went the way of the road team and made it a comfortable night on the scoreboard for Old Tappan, which took control of the league title race with a 51-16 victory.
“We score all of the matches beforehand to try to figure out what is going to happen,” said Old Tappan head coach Rob Ortiz. “Being conservative, we thought it was going to be a pretty close match and we thought we might have some issues.”
One of those that was deemed too close to call came at 138. Demarest had won two of three bouts to sneak back in match in terms of team score when Old Tappan's Declan Ward took the mat. Ward had a 1-0 lead heading into the second period and picked up three near-fall points when he turned Aidan Meyer from the top, but Meyer got out, picked up two for a reversal and set off a scramble, the outcome of which weighed heavily in the outcome. Ward escaped the bottom to take a 5-2 lead and added an escape early in the third to post a 6-2 win, one of six that Old Tappan earned in the final seven contested bouts.
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Demarest's Amir Ohring fought through a bloody nose to win a decision at 152 pounds. |
“I felt like I had him good, but it was just a miscommunication with my coach about how I was supposed to approach the pin and [Meyer] got out,” said Ward, a sophomore. “In the scramble, I was just trying to make my way through it. I didn't really think, I just did what comes natural to me in that kind of situation.”
As it turned out, however, there was no real deciding match as Old Tappan worked from comfortably in front all night as it opened with two second period pins right out of the gate to build an early lead. Jedh Downey got the Golden Knights going in the opener at 195 and Joseph Jordan followed with another, needing 3:08 to pick up six team points at 220.
Downey, a sixth place finisher at 182 in the BCCA George Jockish Holiday Tournament, has shaken off the nagging bumps and bruises that come with the football-to-wrestling transition and opened a 10-0 lead after the first period courtesy of two takedowns and two sets of three near-fall points before pinning 1:08 into the second period.
“I wanted to be the first guy to wrestle because I wanted to set the tone for the match and that is exactly what we did. We knew this was going to be a fun match to wrestle in and I am glad that we came out with a bang,” said Downey, a junior and a first team All-Bergen County tight end. “I am getting better. I feel pretty healthy right now and I like the way our team is wrestling, too and we just have to keep on going.”
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Jedh Downey got Old Tappan off to a fast start with his pin at 195 pounds in the first match of the night. |
Doug Haddad got Demarest on the board at 285 as he outlasted Kyle Shannon in a tightly contested bout. Shannon escaped 15 seconds into the third period to draw to within 4-3, but the match ended on the feet with no more scoring.
With the flip to the lightweights Old Tappan got two more pins as Matthew Murawski won in 1:12 at 1:06 and Bobby Barzelatto pinned in 2:40 at 113 to extend the Golden Knights' lead to 24-3.
“We knew we had to do everything right at the beginning of the night. We are a little light this year, we have some injuries and Old Tappan is tough and they came out and wrestled that way,” said Demarest head coach Mike DiPiano. “There were a couple of matches that could have gone either way and all of them went in Old Tappan's direction.”
Demarest got back-to-back wins at 120 and 126 to draw within 24-13 and briefly keep itself in the match. Andrew Hurdman, a senior, battled through a thumb injury to post an 11-3 major decision and Anthony Rubinetti, the second place finisher in the BCCA tourney and last season's county champ, pinned in 1:42.
But then Peter Andresen won 9-2 at 132 and Ward won at 138 to bump the lead back to 30-13 before the most entertaining match of the evening, Anthony Aiello's 4-2 overtime win over Demarest's Owen Ross at 145. With the match tied at 2 heading into the third period, Aiello rode out the full final two minutes. He was hit with a stall warning with 24 seconds left, but did enough from the top to see out the period and then got a takedown 28 seconds into the extra session to get his hand raised.
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Wrestling with an injured thumb, Demarest senior Andrew Hurdman (top) won a major decision at 120. |
Ami Ohring scored Demarest's final three points of the match with a 7-3 victory at 152. Ohring used up almost all of his allotted blood time as the trainer tried to turn off the tap from his nose and would up wearing the dreaded mask of athletic tape to get back out there, but breathed through his mouth the rest of the way and held on for the win.
Old Tappan's Tyler Mullen, the BCCA's 160-pound champ, pinned in the second period at 170 and Aidan Feeney closed the festivities with a pin two seconds before the second period horn to give Old Tappan a 10-4 advantage in matches won.
The Golden Knights improved to 5-0 on the season heading into a competitive quad meet this weekend against Paramus, Emerson/Park Ridge and Delbarton and now have the inside track for the league title.
So far, so good.
“With all respect to the other teams in the league, it looks like, on paper at least, that Demarest is one of the better teams in the league and I expect them to go and with the rest of their dual meets,” said Ortiz. “If they got past us, I think we would have been out of [the running for the league title], so maybe now it is the other way around.”
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