Knights ride quick start
By: Justin Feil
Alex Ragucci had won his bouts in each of the last two years against West Windsor-Plainsboro South, but he’d never been able to celebrate much because his WW-P North team had never won.
Wednesday, Ragucci won again and was able to enjoy his record 10-second victory by pin with his Knight teammates, who captured a 39-24 win for the first North victory over South.
"I think it’s a very big win," said Ragucci, a senior who wrestled at 171 pounds Wednesday. "We’ve never actually beaten South. It’s a huge win for us. Our new guys fought really well. It all came together."
The key to the match was the start the Knights got off to at South’s Pirate Cove. Joel Kaye opened the match with a win by pin at 112 pounds and Ted Hirt and Matt Kalinowski followed with decision wins. Then the Knights’ Jeff Rotella won by pin for an 18-0 lead before Ali Jaffery earned the Pirates’ first win of the night. After Ragucci’s pin built an insurmountable 36-9 lead, South won the next three matches before the Knights’ Brian Gallagher finished off the win.
"Momentum, it goes that way," said South head coach Craig Wilson, whose squad slipped to 3-3. "I thought they fought back great. But it’s tough when they get the momentum going. It’s high school kids. I told them not to hang their heads. This is going to be a rivalry and it’s going to be close like this."
It hadn’t been so close in Ragucci’s career. As a freshman, he was on the losing end in a 54-16 pasting by the Pirates. WW-P South won, 47-21, in 2003 and took an especially painful 40-21 decision last year. That loss set the stage for this season.
"I think I was confident," Ragucci said. "I think we should have won last year. We had some lineup problems. We have some stronger freshmen this year. They came in and have some experience. They’re tough."
Hirt, Kalinowski and Gallagher all were freshman winners on Wednesday for the Knights. They helped WW-PN to a historic win.
"When you get off to that start," said Knights head coach Bill Mealy, "it’s a definite morale booster. And even (Dan) McGuigan’s match against Ali, the way he worked and fought (in a 2-0 loss) a lot of people thought that would just get pinned that sparked people too."
WW-P North looks to ride the momentum of Wednesday’s win into Saturday’s match against Princeton High. The Knights will be looking to even their 2-3 record against team that Mealy admits he hasn’t begun to study.
"I haven’t even looked," he said. "I’ve spent all my time concentrating on everything for this one."
Mealy, whose son B.J. wrestled for WW-P South before graduating, had to keep his strategies quiet at the family dinner table but has a year to enjoy this one before the next meeting with the Pirates.
"It feels real good," Mealy said. "It’s still sinking in to finally get to this point. It’s a good feeling. I thought we let a chance get away big time last year. We didn’t really come out with a good attitude. We looked on paper and saw we were better. I think we took it for granted and South came out with the right attitude. They learned from that and it showed."
Ragucci, last year’s Princeton Packet Wrestler of the Year, has picked up where he left off. But even he had never had a victory as fast as the 10-second pin he recorded Wednesday. It was the quickest pin in North’s five-year history, and quickest ever for Ragucci, who has been wrestling since he was in seventh grade.
"He just got close and I put him in a fireman’s carry and he was on his back," Ragucci said. "It was a good night."
Particularly because it is an instant highlight to his high school career that already has some glowing accomplishments. But better than any individual strides he’s made is the team’s win over South.
"It makes it real nice," Ragucci said. "I was hoping for a nice sendoff. We couldn’t do it last year. It’s nice to go out like this with a little extra."
Ragucci is hoping there are more landmark wins for the Knights in his final season with them. As a captain, he’d doing all he can to help the squad.
"He’s a leader in every sense of the word," Mealy said. "He’s talking to guys, he’s constantly giving encouragement. He sets the example in practice. He’s just tremendous. He’ll be tough to replace."
There’s still plenty of time before Mealy and the Knights have to think about that day.
"I think from last year, we’ve made a lot of progress," Ragucci said. "The freshmen and sophomores have improved a lot. They all just came through for us. Our first win, Joel Kaye, he went out there today and really took it to his opponent. I’ve never seen him be like that. That set the tone for the whole night. We made sure we were aggressive.
"I think we were a little more pumped up this year. We really wanted it after last year. We did really well."
Other Knight winners were Corey Simmons-Elder, Ramon Sanchez by pin and George Goldsmith. South winners were Dan Fryer, Joe Everingham, Brian Morris and Andrew O’Shaughnessy.
"Things didn’t go our way," said the Pirates’ Wilson. "They went our way last year. We were young. We had 10 sophomores and freshmen. We’re still young. The majority of them are juniors and sophomores. Once we get some momentum and fill in our lineup, we’re going to be real good."