By Rudy Brandl, The Packet Group
The individual portion of the high school wrestling begins with this weekend’s District 17 Championships at Hunterdon Central High in Flemington.
While there will be a team title at stake for the last time this winter, the district stage marks the first step for individual wrestlers in their quest for state championships. Wrestlers placing in the top three at the 32 district sites around the state will qualify for the eight region tournaments, the final stop before the NJSIAA Championships in Atlantic City.
Lawrence (6-13) hasn’t enjoyed its usual success in the regular season but hopes to make plenty of noise against an extremely competitive District 17 field. Host Hunterdon Central and neighboring powerhouse North Hunterdon will be the favorites to capture the team title. Those two Hunterdon schools, along with county rivals Voorhees and Delaware Valley, figure to place many of those wrestlers in the top three.
That leaves quite a daunting task for the Cardinals, who were hammered by Central, Voorhees and Del Val in a recent quad. The rest of the District 17 field includes Mercer County and CVC rivals Hopewell Valley, Ewing. Notre Dame and Princeton.
”It’s always tough to get out,” Lawrence head coach Chris Lynne said. “The Hunterdon County schools are tough. You have to get good seeds, but I’m good at seeding meetings. I’ll go in prepared. I’ll go in with as much research as possible.”
Senior 160-pounder Sean Pearson, a defending district champ, leads the Cardinals into this weekend’s tournament, which kicks off with preliminaries and quarterfinals Friday and continues with semifinals, consolations and finals Saturday. Lynne has been looking forward to watching Pearson and talented sophomore teammate Tommy O’Rourke compete at this level since the beginning of the season.
Pearson (24-5) made things a little more difficult for himself when he was pinned by Hunterdon Central’s Matt Dambach in the quad meet. The weight class will be challenging enough but Pearson likely will have to navigate a tougher road if he expects to repeat.
”It was nice having Sean as a district champ last year,” Lynne said. “Because of that one loss to Dambach, he’s going to move down. I’m not sure where he’ll be seeded.”
O’Rourke (21-7) also got a taste of a potential district foe at the quad when he lost to Voorhees standout Vinny Peoni. The controversial one-point loss to Trevor Stiefken of Voorhees will move O’Rourke down another notch and he may have to avenge that defeat to place in the district.
”Tommy’s hoping to get out,” Lynne said. “He’s probably going to run into Peoni in the semifinals and he might have to wrestle for third place.”
Other Cardinals to watch this weekend include junior 152-pounder Gerrayl Bryson and senior 215-pounder Lee Wing Zhou. Bryson is a pure athlete who can catch anybody by surprise. Zhou is a workhorse who’s in great shape for a big guy.
”He’s so strong and he’ll wrestle hard for six minutes,” Lynne said. “If you’re not in shape, Lee Wing will beat you.”
The Cardinals are a much better team now than back in December. After an 0-7 start, they split their final 12 matches. Three of those later losses came in the quad against the Hunterdon schools, which gave Lawrence a good indication of how challenging things will be at this weekend’s District 17 Championships.

