Virgil, Ratner, Trivisonno and Amponsa win individual titles
By: Sean Moylan
The Hightstown School wrestling team was supposed to be intimidated taking on some of the better 16 teams big, bad Burlington County had to offer in the Pine Barrens Tournament at Shawnee this past Saturday.
But instead the Rams put on a show and scored 190 points to place second in the tourney behind Delran, which is a very good wrestling team.
"We really wrestled well in the tournament. We had four individual champions, which we’ve never had before," noted Hightstown head wrestling coach Mike Russo, who loves the challenge of his kids wrestling in such tough tournaments.
Wrestling in his first varsity tournament ever, Travis Virgil, Hightstown’s talented freshman 103-pound, posted a 3-0 record and dominated his weight class and even pinned Delran’s Robinson in the finals.
Hightstown’s Dan Ratner also surprised more than a few people with his individual title at 171 pounds.
"Ratner earned it," added Russo, who was impressed with Ratner’s 13-11 win over Cherokee’s Sailing in the finals.
Of course, two of the Rams’ individual championships were a little more expected. In fact, after receiving a first-round bye, Tim Trivisonno breezed to title at 125, and he looked especially sharp in a 20-1 technical fall over Cherokee’s Forrester in the finals.
"He went out and was a man on a mission," noted Russo of Trivisonno.
Hightstown’s Kenny Amponsa was also expected to do well coming into the tourney. However, the talented Rams’ 215-pounder had to defeat Delran’s Max Larson (a 30-match winner last season) 10-5 in the finals to escape with a title.
Russo also felt that Jason Herrera, his highly-skilled freshman 112-pounder, wrestled very well in the tournament to place third overall with a 2-1 mark.
Then on Wednesday Hightstown hosted and defeated West Windsor Plainsboro-South, 44-25.
"In a couple of matches we wrestled above our heads and in a couple of others we didn’t wrestle as well," said Russo, who had expected a win going into the match.
Following a tough loss by John Aponte at 119, Trivisonno put Hightstown in the win column by pinning Isa Shamsadov at the 5:38 mark of their match at 125.
"He (Trivisonno) was working on a tech-fall," added Russo.
Then at 130, Hightstown’s Ricardo Calamari pinned Michael Kenney in just 76 seconds. Sean McEvenie (135) then posted a 17-1 tech-fall over the Pirates’ Justino Gonzalez, which was followed by Hightstown’s Brendan Walsh’s convincing 12-2 major decision over John Yokomizo. Tommy Boyle flattened the Pirates’ Nick Everingham at the 3:14 mark of their match at 145.
The Rams’ lost their next two bouts, before Ratner (171) got Hightstown back on the right track by pinning Brandon Friscia 73 seconds into their match. At 189, the Pirates’ Joe Everingham edged Hightstown’s Matt Fried, 3-2.
But Russo was, nonetheless, impressed with Fried’s toughness and he commented, "Fried, in a losing effort, had the best performance of the night."
Amponso dominated and pinned Andrew O’Shaughnessy (215) 17 seconds into the second period of their match. Hightstown then dropped its next next two matches, but Herrera (112) ended Hightstown’s evening on a high note with a 17-1 tech-fall over Matt Redmond.
All things considered it was a good win for the Rams to start the regular season. Hightstown (1-0) is scheduled to wrestle in the Holy Cross Tournament this Saturday. Then next Saturday, Hightstown is scheduled at Steinert for a regular season match.

