I t took a couple of weeks for Manalapan High School’s John Appice to find his wrestling legs, not that you would know that from his performances to date. The Braves senior has yet to drop a match as he looks to make a return trip to Atlantic City for the NJSIAA Individual Wrestling Championships in March.
Less than a week after playing in the Central Jersey Group IV football championship game at Rutgers University (where the previously undefeated Braves lost to South Brunswick High School, 33-22), Appice, who was an all-state defensive lineman, was back on the mat at the Neptune Classic, where he wrestled and won just one match.
Since that opener, Appice has been rounding into the form that led him to a single season school record of 37 wins in 2012, winning both the District 21 and Region 6 championships before medaling in Atlantic City with his seventh-place finish (his record for the year was 37-3).
Appice won the heavyweight title at the Walter Woods Tournament at Middletown High School South last month and he was named the Most Outstanding Upper Weights Wrestler at the tournament.
In dual meets, he has yet to wrestle a full six-minute match, and only one wrestler, South Brunswick’s Gordon Thompson, wasn’t pinned. Thompson lost by a technical fall, 15-0. Appice’s quickest pin was in 44 seconds. Appice likes where he’s at as the busy part of the wrestling season begins.
“I feel stronger,” he said. “I’m more fluid on my feet and I’m more confident.”
Appice’s strength at the heavyweight position has always been his wrestling ability. Many heavyweight matches turn into sumo matches, with the wrestlers locking horns and never really doing anything. Footwork and quickness separate Appice from the rest of the pack, and he is able to wrestle like a lighter-weight wrestler and consistently score takedowns.
One area that Appice said he has spent the most time working on is lining up on top in the referee’s position. He said that he has to be able to hold onto his opponent longer. That was a problem area for him last year. Thus far, that hasn’t been much of an issue this season.
The biggest transition from the gridiron to the wrestling mat was conditioning, according to Appice. In football, there is rest after every play and, even though he played both ways in a 48-minute game, it was no substitute for the grueling torture of a sixminute wrestling match. That conditioning is what he was looking to find in the early matches of the season.
Appice is currently ranked No. 7 by the New Jersey Wrestling Writer’s Association. No doubt, as he wrestlers more, he will move up that ladder.