Sunday,
March 01, 2009
By NICK
FIERRO
The
Express-Times
HARDYSTON TWP., N.J. | With
two more seasons to go after this one, Phillipsburg High School sophomore Matt
Lane probably has a few more moments in him like the ones he produced Saturday
at the NJSIAA Region 1 Wrestling Tournament.
What he, senior teammate
Matt Santini and coach
Lane finished off a dream
of a run here at
Santini so thoroughly dominated his finals
opponent, returning state placewinner Mike Suk of
Finally, Magditch and
Lane's latest triumph came
on the heels of an equally satisfying victory in the semifinals on Saturday
morning against
"The semis were
definitely a big step for me because I lost to him the last time," Lane
said. "But that (finals) match, that was ... it
was hard to choose.
"It (the cement job)
was pretty much the only option I had there. I didn't know what else to do.
Nothing else was really working."
Lane and Santini were two of six Stateliners
to qualify for the state championship tournament, which will begin Friday in
Other winners on Saturday
night included Hackettstown's Corey Kozimor (119),
North Warren's Kevin Brown (152) and
The champions will join
John Horak (runner-up at 125), Mike Simon (runner-up
at 160), Oliver Brukardt (third at 140) and Nick Pare
(third at 145) of Pburg and Matt Schuebel
(third at 125) and Jon Slack (third at 285) of
Much like Lane, Santini's championship also came on the heels of a tense
semifinal decision, 10-8, over
Santini seemingly had no answers for
Campanile -- until Campanile ran out of gas in the third period and suddenly no
longer could offer any resistance. As a result, Santini
started taking Campanile down and letting him up on his way to turning a 7-2
deficit into a 10-8 victory.
"Oh, my God," Santini said, "it was rough. He was riding me with
legs, he was hammering me. But I could hear him huffing and puffing, louder and
louder. I was like, 'he's going to burn out. I'm going to get this
match.'"
In the finals, Santini completely opened up against Suk,
a returning state placewinner, to win convincingly.
This was despite not being able to get off the bottom in the second period.
"All the pressure was
off," he said. "The past two years, I was battling for third -- that's
a lot more pressure. Here, I just had to wrestle. And I felt awesome,
a whole lot better than the last match. I was just ready to go."
Brown, undefeated in the
individual postseason tournaments, was not challenged seriously this entire
weekend, which he capped by dominating
"I just go against
whoever they put me against," said Brown, who became just the second
wrestler in the history of
Artigliere, who had beaten Simon twice before
meeting in Saturday's finals, was too slick once again. Plus, he wrestled a
smart match to earn a 10-8 decision that was not as close as the score.
"He has a flying
cement job and he upset the entire bottom half of the bracket with it," Artigliere said. "... I knew it was coming. There were
a couple times I had a single leg and I felt him slip it in and I had to bail
out on it. He's pretty dangerous. He's got some good junk."
As is often the case, many
of the best matches unfolded in the semifinals. This was particularly true at
130, where Lane outlasted DiVitantonio and
Hackettstown's Erik Mitchell had rolled C.J. Caserta of Roxbury to his back and
likely would have scored back points if
Pare had a 7-6 lead and was
on his feet against Ethan Orr of High Point in the third period of their
semifinal at 145, before being taken down and getting an escape to force
overtime. Orr had an apparent takedown at the buzzer ending regulation that was
not allowed, but was able to get one in overtime for the sudden-death victory.
More heartbreak followed in
a heavyweight semifinal which ended badly for Slack, who lost a 3-1 decision to