WRESTLING
By: John E. Powers
The end of wrestling’s dual meet season comes Saturday, and it appears the Lawrence High School wrestling team is in good position as the postseason looms.
The Cardinals scored a 35-21 win over Cherry Hill West last week; finished a quarter point out of third place at last weekend’s Mercer County Tournament and performed well in a 44-18 loss to Northern Burlington in a Central Jersey Group III quarterfinal match Tuesday night at Ocean High School.
The Cardinals were scheduled to wrap up the dual meet season with an away match Thursday at Nottingham, and then will have a quad Saturday at the Ritacco Center in Toms River with Toms River North, Woodbridge and South Brunswick.
Eric Waldron (103), Martin Jennings (130), Mike Czigler (145), Sean Pearson (171) and John Murawski (215) had the wins against Northern Burlington.
The Cardinals were wrestling without starters Mitch Cohen (119), Alex Pearson (171) and Alex DeCasaneve (285). The three have injuries but are expected back, head coach Chris Lynne said. The three were hurt at the county tournament as was 135-pounder Ricky Scott, but Scott was able to wrestle Tuesday.
The Cardinals now have a 10-6 dual meet record.
"We won five matches and we should have won seven," said Lynne of the sectional matchup. "They were missing a couple of guys too. But I told our guys before the match that I wanted us to let them know that we were on the mat. The kids went out and represented."
Lynne was especially pleased with Eric Waldron’s 12-0 major victory at 103, Martin Jennings’ 3-0 win at 130 and 215-pounder John Murawski’s technical fall victory. Sean Pearson moved up a weight to 171 and won 3-2.
"Jennings and Waldron had real good matches and Murawski kept getting pinning combinations," Lynne said.
Sean Pearson was second at 160 at the county tournament. Mike Scott as third at 152 and Cohen (119), Jennings (130) and Andrew Goldberg (140) were fourth. Waldron (103) and Czigler (145) were both fifth.
"We medaled 10 out of 14 guys and the majority of them placed higher than what they were seeded," Lynne said.
The Cardinals had seven in the semifinals.
"We really came into the second day of the tournament finishing good," Lynne said.
Notre Dame won its second straight county title with 216 points, Hightstown was second with 180 and Allentown was third at 147.25 Lawrence , which had a 5.5 point lead for third going into the final round, finished with 147.
"Allentown had three guys left (in the final) and we had one and the only way Allentown gets ahead of us is if one of their three kids pins," Lynne said.
Allentown got the points it needed to pull ahead when Matt Vahabi won by disqualification after being elbowed in the face by his opponent. That gave Allentown two team bonus points.
Lawrence won nine of 14 bouts in beating Cherry Hill West.
Mike Scott (152) won by fall, Waldron got a technical fall win and Cohen, Jennings and Ricky Scott won by majors. Murawski had a 4-2 win at 215.
"They knew everything about us and we didn’t know a thing about them," Lynne said. "We knew we would be in the ballpark with them because they lost to Sterling and we lost to Sterling (37-25). It was just something different."

