By: Kyle Moylan
While a certain amount of elation is attached to every championship in the Mercer County Wrestling Tournament, Matt Vahabi’s also came with a good dose of pain.
Vahabi, who has worn a protective mask during matches since breaking his nose in a practice two months ago, won the 140-pound title when Hamilton West’s Jerome Friedman was disqualified for hitting the Allentown junior with an elbow to the face in the second period of their match.
"Just because my nose is broke, he doesn’t have to hit me in the face," Vahabi said. "That’s just poor sportsmanship. I wouldn’t do that."
To make matters worse, it was the second time in the match it happened. With 10 seconds left in the first period, the match was delayed for a few minutes when Vahabi was knocked a bit woozy.
"It’s not a boxing match," Vahabi noted. "I still have a headache from the one in the first period. That one made me really angry. I wasn’t going to stop because of that. I was ready to go after that."
In the second period, Vahabi was right in the middle of what he thought would be a decisive move when Friedman’s elbow hit and the match was immediately ended by a disqualification.
This marked the second season in a row Vahabi defeated Friedman in the Mercer County Tournament. Vahabi defeated him in the semis last season on the way to a second-place finish at 135 pounds.
This past weekend at Trenton High, Vahabi had a very easy go of it in the initial rounds. After a bye, Vahabi defeated Ewing’s Kynan Harris, 10-1, in the quarterfinals. He then defeated Lawrence’s Andrew Goldberg, 17-5, in the semifinals.
"I worked really hard for this," Vahabi said. "I didn’t want anything to stop me. It’s hard to see with the mask on, but I deal with it. I just rely on my senses to feel where the guy is at. And the one benefit is it’s probably pretty intimidating to wrestle a guy in a mask."
Vahabi was one of three Allentown wrestlers to reach the finals. Pat Pape placed second at 119 pounds after being pinned in the title match by Notre Dame’s Dave DeCamp. Derek Bachmann placed second at 152 pounds after being edged by Trenton’s Caanan Bethea, 12-9.
"You have to give a lot of credit to Pat Pape and Derek Bachmann," Allentown Coach Bob Mussari said. "They both wrestled really well."
Pape reached the finals by pinning West Windsor South’s Zachary Mozentar and recording a 3-1 decision against Nottingham’s Lioder Metellus in the semis. Bachmann reached the finals with a 3-1 decision over Ewing’s Mauric Lazarre and a 12-5 decision against Lawrence’s Mike Scott.
"I don’t know if we’ve ever got three guys in the finals before," Mussari said. "We’ve come a long way. Three years ago we had 11 wrestlers in the entire program. Now we have 36 and every match the kids know they have a chance to win."
Proving Mussari’s point, Allentown placed third in the 15-team field, behind only the repeat champs from Notre Dame (216 points) and Hightstown (180). Allentown finished with 147.5 points, just ahead of Lawrence (147).
"I’m proud of all the kids," Mussari said. "We won the Patriot Division for the second year in a row. And placing third in the Mercer County Tournament is big for us."
Allentown placed third by getting contributions across the board. And as evidenced by the final score, every match mattered in this tournament.
Kyle Bachmann went 3-2 on the way to a fourth-place finish. Two of his wins at 145 pounds came by pin.
John Butera pinned West Windsor North’s Tim McGuigan to place fifth at 160 pounds. Butera finished the tournament 3-2.
Jose Barcena (215) won a 7-4 decision against Hopewell Valley’s Bo Palker to place fifth. Barcena finished with a 4-2 record.
Matt Ferro (125) pinned Ewing’s Andrew Dennis in the match for fifth place. Ferro had three pins in the tournament while going 3-2.
Matt Wilhelm (171) was defeated in the match for fifth place, but finished the tournament with three wins. Jason DeLeon (112 pounds) didn’t end up placing, but he did manage two important wins. DeLeon had a technical fall against Lawrence’s Charles Pearson and a pin against Nottingham’s Dan Harman. Andrew Ferro (135) also had two big wins in his weight class.
Kris Bachmann (130) and C.J. Nafus (275) both managed wins in their weights classes. Steve Colletti (103) and James McCormick (189) also competed in the event.
Allentown was scheduled to wrestle Princeton last night. It will wrestle Hamilton, Steinert and Pemberton on Saturday.
"That’ll get us ready for the Districts," Mussari said. "Hopefully we can get two or three kids into the regions."
Vahabi is hoping he can place in the top three of his weight class and advance on to the regions. He’s just hoping he didn’t have a setback physically this weekend.
"My nose is pretty tender," Vahabi said. "If I touch it, it hurts. It also hurts when I sneeze. I’m terrfied to sneeze now."
Good thing for Vahabi he won the Mercer County Tournament. After all, that’s nothing to sneeze at.

