Saturday,
February 28, 2009
By NICK
FIERRO
The
Express-Times
HARDYSTON TWP., N.J. | On a
night when powerhouse high schools such as Phillipsburg and High Point
dominated in terms of sheer numbers, relatively tiny Hackettstown took center
stage Friday night in the NJSIAA Region 1 quarterfinals.
Ryan Nicotra
and Erik Mitchell each pulled off stunning upsets to provide the Tigers with an
unexpected momentum burst heading into today's marathon conclusion at the same
site.
Nicotra, wrestling against No. 2 seed Bill Hagany of
At 130, Mitchell drew top
seed Chris Burdge of Kittatinny
for his match and did an even better job than Nicotra,
locking up a cradle for three back points in the closing seconds to win a 7-4
decision.
Nicotra and Mitchell will join teammate
Corey Kozimor (119) in this morning's semifinals.
Advancing for
Among others to win in the
quarterfinals at
On a night filled with
upsets, Slack finished it off appropriately, dispatching second seed Luke
Ramsey, who owned a 45-pound weight advantage, with a pin in 3:38.
"Once you get to
regions, everybody's good," Slack said. "You can't underestimate
anybody and you just go out there and wrestle, have fun. ... As soon as I got
the double arms and he went on his back, I was like, 'I got him now, I got him now.'"
For the longest time in
Mitchell's match, it appeared his strategy to take top in the second period was
going to backfire. He did ride Burdge the whole
period, but failed to turn him, then fell behind 4-2
when Burdge went neutral in the third and promptly
took Mitchell down.
Nervous as Mitchell was, he
never panicked. Eventually he was able to work a reversal before hitting the
cradle.
Watching Nicotra beat Hagany helped fire
him up. So did a chat with
"I was pretty
intimidated by the seedings," Mitchell admitted.
"But I wrestled 135 for the year and I went down to 130 for districts, so
I think that really helped me out. I didn't know much (about Burdge), but Moyer just told me how he's seen me wrestle
and he's seen him wrestle and he knew I could beat him. That gave me a lot of
confidence, coming from him."
Alas, Moyer wasn't as
fortunate in his match at 135 against Montville's Mike Intile,
who reversed Moyer in the closing seconds of regulation to force overtime and
eventually won a 5-3 decision with a reversal in the second overtime rideout.
Although Brukardt's 12-3 major decision over third seed Kyle Dellamo of
Even in this rematch, Brukardt refused to ease off after establishing a
comfortable lead and nearly paid another heavy price after Dellamo
just missed on two potentially devastating headlocks in the third period.
"Third period, I'm not
quitting," Brukardt said. "I'm going to go
eight, nine minutes or whatever. I'll go the whole, entire time. I'm never, ever,
ever going to quit. Three or four times I had back (points) there. So I really
wasn't worried. I'll never get pinned again. I just have that mentality that
it's not going to happen. It's not allowed."
Simon's win over
second-seeded Shane Parcel of
In fact, all three District
1 representatives advanced in that weight class, although top seed Artigliere barely survived, 13-11, after nearly being
decked by a cement job that gave
Following the morning
semifinals, consolation finals are scheduled at 5 p.m., with the finals to
follow an hour later.
Nick Fierro
can be reached at 800-360-3601 or by e-mail at nfierro@express-times.com