Wrestling
By: Steve Feitl
The Lawrence High School wrestling team may be young, but the Cardinals’ confidence is growing match by match.
The Cardinals (1-1) lost their first match to West Windsor-Plainsboro South on Dec. 19, but a funny thing happened along the way, according to head coach Chris Lynne.
"We didn’t know what to expect going into the match," he said. "I don’t think the guys expected to be there, but it went right down to the final match. All of a sudden, they realized we can compete."
The Cardinals did more than compete on Saturday.
In their second match of the season, the Cardinals defeated Princeton, 51-30.
Six pins, one decision and two forfeits led the Lawrence squad to victory.
At 119, Ed Ortiz scored a pin in four minutes, 52 seconds.
In the 130-pound slot, Evan Kontos made short work of his opponent, scoring the fall in 1:01. At 1:35, Chris Floyd also picked up a pin.
Alex Parson at 145 took the fall in 2:36, while Andrew Bell at 171 needed only 1:30 for his pin.
Brian Friedeborn picked up Lawrence’s lone decision in the 152 slot. The score was 9-4.
"Now it’s in their heads that we can compete," Lynne said. "And with our lightweights being strong, when we can gets some points from the higher weight classes, we can win.
"That’s what happened for us on Saturday."
The Cardinals now head to tournament in North Brunswick today. They will be facing off against many of the Route 1-corridor teams such as Elizabeth and Metuchen.
These tough squads are also the opposition come regional tournament time, so these match-ups will be key for seeding later in the season.
Since most of his wrestlers are unproven commodities, Lynne is not sure where many of wrestlers will be seeded.
Seedings are based on last year’s records and most of the Cardinal squad do not have a 2000-2001 record to speak of.
So Lynne is taking a wait-and-see stance when it comes to how his team will perform in North Brunswick.
"We’re young team, so it’s really hard to judge," he said.