Bad day for a P'burg upset

By MIKE WEILAMANN

The Express-Times

TOMS RIVER, N.J. | There are good days and bad days.

Philipsburg High School's wrestling team, along with the rest of the Warren County contingent, experienced the latter on Sunday.

The upset-minded Stateliners couldn't repeat their magical performance of a year ago -- falling 40-15 to Southern in the NJSIAA Group 4 semifinals at Toms River North's Ritacco Center.

Phillipsburg (15-5) was dominated in every phase against Southern (16-4). The 'Liners, who pushed the Rams to the limit in a 32-25 semifinal loss last year, won only four bouts and lost the takedown battle 26-4. In addition, none of the 14 P'burg wrestlers collected back points.

"I knew it was bad. I didn't know it was that bad," said first-year P'burg coach Jason Magditch when informed of the final stats. "It was a humbling experience. We won the coin toss. That was all we really won. Score-wise this was probably the worst we could do."

Coach John Stout's Rams have now beaten Phillipsburg five straight times between dual meets and Group 4 matches in three seasons -- including handing the Stateliners' their only Group semifinal losses in 25 appearances dating to 1982.

"I'm very proud of that," said Stout, whose 2005 team beat P'burg 30-25 in the Group 4 final. "They're a solid team. They just didn't match up well with us. I have a lot of respect for that program."

Southern's Keith Dillard opened the match with an 11-2 major of Jerry Robbins at 152 pounds. Stateliner Dan Marino tried to rally his team with a last-second 5-4 win over Aaron Williams at 160, but the Rams won the next four -- including Ed Broderick's dominating 7-1 decision of Matt Santini at 171 -- to go up 19-3 through six bouts.

Southern's Mike Thomas also did damage with a 3-2 win over Jared Crouse at 285 to cap the run.

"We just were not in it from the beginning," Magditch said. "We couldn't get anything going. We thought 171 and 189 were tossups. We didn't get any breaks, but you got to go out ready to perform. We didn't perform -- bottom line."

"We took the wind out of their sails early and that's a hard thing to recover from," said Stout, whose team suffered its third loss this season to Jackson in the final.

Marquis Pierce took a forfeit win at 103 and Charlie McGuinness won 3-2 over Jason Walters at 112 to pull the Stateliners within seven at 19-12. McGuinness (11-6), who beat Walters 9-8 last year at 103, needed a reversal with 47 seconds left to win another one-pointer.

Needing to sweep the next three to have a shot at the upset, Magditch plugged reserve freshman Adam Simon in at 119 and bumped Jon Horak and Luke Grassi up from 119 and 125, respectively.

The move backfired when Simon lost 10-4 to Korey Harrison and Horak dropped a 12-0 major to Brian Broderick. Grassi came through with a 4-2 win over Nick Maugeri at 130, but the Rams led 26-15 with three bouts left.

Frank Miele's 9-7 win over P'burg freshman Oliver Brukardt at 135 clinched it with Southern aces Frank Molinaro (140) and Luke Lanno (145) still on deck.

"We tried to steal two (at 119 and 125)," Magditch said. "I thought Horak could stay with (Broderick) at 125."

Phillipsburg, which had only two seniors in Sunday's lineup, simply couldn't find enough desirable matchups in this one.

"(Southern) is a high-caliber team and they showed it," Magditch said. "Give them credit. They came out aggressive from the get-go. They were more aggressive and hungrier."

Mike Weilamann can be reached at 800-360-3601 or by e-mail at mweilamann@express-times.com.