By: centraljersey.com
As happy as the Manville High School wrestling team was to place its highest in over a decade at the Somerset County Tournament on Saturday, their Holmdel Tournament win two days later was an even better indication of how far the Mustangs have come.
The Mustangs entered the Holmdel Tournament without three of their starters, but still finished ahead of Point Pleasant Beach, a team they are battling for a berth in the state tournament that entered its full team Monday.
"To come back and win that says a lot," said Manville fourth-year head coach Pat Gorbatuk, whose team topped Point Pleasant in the team standings, 74-70. "We were eighth out of 13 last year. We were able to jump all those teams a year later."
Devin Burke won the 119-pound championship, David Dziwak reached the 135-pound final, Peter Hando took a narrow decision to capture 140 pounds, Emmanuel Soto reached the finals at 145, and David Castro pinned Tim Kegley of Holmdel for the 215-pound crown. Isaiah Soto was third at 160 pounds and Josh Saultz was fourth at 189.
"We were down three starters in the lineup and the kids wrestled phenomenally," Gorbatuk said. "I think we had a little extra juice after not performing our best on Saturday.
"The county is a bigger tournament, it’s a bigger spotlight. You’d love to have the bigger day under the bigger spotlight."
Manville still performed its best since 2000 on Saturday at the Somerset County Tournament, when it also finished seventh. The Mustangs had 73 points, their most since they also scored 73 in 1998. Castro reached the finals at 215, only to lose to four-time champion Anthony Campolattano of Bound Brook, and Emmanuel Soto also made the finals, the first time Manville had two finalists since 1999.
"The first reaction is that we as a team did something that hadn’t been done in 10-12 years," Gorbatuk said. "That puts into perspective how much hard work they’ve done. On the flip side, you see how many points we missed and realize we could have been a couple spots higher. You realize you’ve come far, but we could have done even better."
Gorbatuk doesn’t think he’s taking anything away from the Mustangs strongest showing in years. He’s just making sure they’re not satisfied with some progress.
"If we don’t have high expectations, we probably shouldn’t show up," he said. "It’s one of the things that I’m trying to fix.
"We have numbers this year. We have depth in some areas. We have lineup moves we can make to make us a pretty good dual meet team. We’re a better dual meet team than a tournament team."
Manville has opened the season 8-2, with its lone losses coming against Bound Brook and Boonton, and everywhere in its lineup there are Mustangs showing major improvements on the mats. Burke is 12-3, Castro is 11-3, Dziwak is 9-1, Hando has 10 wins, Nicholas Janner is 10-3, Emmanuel Soto is 12-4 and Isaiah Soto is 13-6. Ernie Yakobchuk has gone 9-4.
"They’re wrestling well," Gorbatuk said. "More importantly, they’re competing. They’re a group of brawlers.
"We’re definitely improved. We have the potential to have a team to qualify for the postseason. Things didn’t go our way last year with injuries and illnesses and we had some one- and two-point losses. They regrouped well. Some new guys came in the lineup and it’s been a completely different team," he said.
One that impressed others at the SCT was Emmanuel Soto, who won the Robert Dougherty Determination and Sportsmanship Award. Seeded sixth, he advanced all the way to the final where he fell in triple overtime, 4-2.
"Emmanuel Soto was the sixth seed," Gorbatuk said. "I did expect him to make it. With the seeding criteria, he wasn’t going to land where I thought he should be seeded. He was one of the top two in the bracket, I thought. It was more unfortunate for the three seed that he had to wrestle in the semifinals than for him.
"I think there were a dozen or so matches that we could have won," he added. "Seventh place was a tiny bit disappointing. Had we won half of our tighter matches that I think we could have won, we would have been in the top five."
Isaiah Soto won the consolation final at 160 pounds with a 4-3 win over Ryan Dunhamn of North Plainfield.
"I’m not surprised by anything they’re doing," Gorbatuk said. "When you put the time in in the summer and the kids start to dedicate themselves to it, when you work hard the results are going to become secondary."
Expectations are higher for the Mustangs after their strong start and solid showings in the SCT and Holmdel Tournament. It’s taken a couple of years, but Gorbatuk is happy with the way the program is building.
"My earlier teams, they were dominated by freshmen and sophomores," he said. "Now it’s more juniors and seniors. They’ve got the experience. They’ve experienced the highs and lows. They have a better chance of winning the tighter matches.
"A few years ago, we were the less experienced kids. Now we’ve got some experience."

