Banner Year for Long Valley Youth Wrestling

Jeff Hill humbly lists himself as "Court Jester" of the Long Valley Youth Wrestling Program. In fact, he's its driving force. As a parent of two wrestlers, I am eternally thankful for the blood, sweat and countless hours Jeff pours into making Long Valley Wrestling such an extraordinarily positive influence on young people's lives.

Jeff and the exemplary group of volunteer coaches named below helped our sons Noah and Ben grow, mature and become stronger in every sense of the word -- as athletes, as teammates, as young men who stand up for the weak. They learned what it takes to work hard -- extremely hard -- to get good at something.

I got this letter from Jeff today, and I wanted to share it with you, my fellow West Morris Central Wrestling fans.

In brief, the future of our team looks bright!

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It’s been a banner year for wrestlers in Long Valley, from Coach Rossi’s High Schoolers and their season for the ages, to the next generation of Wolfpack wrestlers honing their skills and competing with the best in New Jersey at the youth level.  The Long Valley youth wrestling program comprises over 100 wrestlers and several teams, all of which have just finished highly successful seasons summarized below.  Only one thing is certain:  the fun is just beginning for Long Valley and West Morris Wrestling.

Grade School

When the Long Valley Wolfpack wrestling program made the decision 2 years ago to enter arguably the toughest 8th grade wrestling league in New Jersey, the coaches knew it wouldn’t be easy. 

“The first year was an eye-opener,” conceded Head Coach Sean Dolan.  “We finished 4-12 and 18th in the League out of 24 teams total.  Clearly, we had some work to do.”  After the first season, the program made the decision to wrestle its top wrestlers in each weight class on the Grade School Team, and took advantage of a maturing group of very talented 7th and 8th graders. 

What a difference a year makes.  With the 4th best record in the League during the regular season this year, Long Valley qualified for the year-end playoffs, placing 3rd overall, and losing only to powerhouse South Plainfield, not only the #1 high school team in New Jersey, but currently ranked 22nd in the nation, including private schools. 

Coach Dolan, pleased with the team’s progress - Long Valley finished 17-3 overall - is nonetheless unsatisfied, “we want to be one of the best in the state, not just our Group or County or Section.  Everyone in the Long Valley program from Coach Rossi (head West Morris coach) to our novice coaches shares that objective.  We’re not there yet, but it’s within our grasp, and we can’t wait for next season for another crack at it.”

Tri-County

Long Valley also enters an 8th-grade team in the highly competitive Tri-Count wrestling League, and things looked bleak early in the year for them as the season got underway in December and early January. 

Bit by the flu bug and a string of injuries, a slow start would be an understatement, and even the normally upbeat John Zgombic, head coach of the Tri-County team, was finding optimism hard to come by:  “In the first few matches, there were times we forfeited 4 or 5 weight classes, and a few of those matches we lost by only a few points ultimately, so it was demoralizing at times.”  As the season progressed, however, the team got healthier, and its line-up solidified. 

“We started to wrestle better, and a full line-up I think gave us the momentum we lacked early in the year.  We won several in a row to finish the regular season and qualify for the Divisional Championship wrestle-off, something none of us would have expected early in the season.”  In the championship wrestle-off, the Tri-County Wolfpack got another crack at the Randolph team that beat them to open the season, and Long Valley did not squander the opportunity. 

Coach Zgombic:  “What a barn-burner…came down to the last match.  Our upper-weights, including some inexperienced kids, really won that match for us.  It’s always nice to avenge an early-season loss and win a championship at the same time.”

Northwest

January 16, 2011.  Jets fans might remember that date as the last time the Jets won a playoff game (beating New England in the Divisional playoff round).  Long Valley Wrestling fans, on the other hand, remember it as the last time the 6th-grade-and-under Wolfpack team lost a Northwest League dual match (to perennial state powerhouse High Point in the last match). 

Since that date, Long Valley’s Northwest wrestlers have won 34 matches in a row, and are 45-1 over the past three seasons, winning the League championship 3 consecutive times.  Head Coach Mike LeMay admits even he’s impressed:  “we graduated 6 of 8 league tournament finalists last season, and maybe the best group of 6th graders the program has ever had, so we knew it would be impossible to replace that group.  We were prepared for a rebuilding year.” 

Remarkably, the “re-built” 2012-2013 team turned out to be more dominant than the 2011-2012 edition. 

Coach LeMay credits the Long Valley JV program for feeding talent to the Northwest team:  “Tom (Whittemore, the coach of the Long Valley Future Stars team) and the other Future Stars and JV coaches like Rick (Defrance) do a great job preparing our JV kids for starting roles, and this year the Future Stars team gave us 7 or 8 kids ready to compete, so not only don’t we have forfeits, we have capable wrestlers at every weight class.  You have to put a good wrestler on the mat to beat us just about everywhere.”  And Coach LeMay isn’t convinced the streak is over just yet. 

“We graduate almost half our line-up this season, but we return all 4 of our League champions – Michael Campanaro, Michael Ferrante, Colin Loughney, and Robbie Bohr – and our Future Stars team just won their League championship with some very good 4th and 5th graders, so our opponents will have to show up ready to wrestle next year when they come to Long Valley.

Future Stars

Long Valley’s wrestling program operates under the assumption that very few good wrestlers are born; the vast majority are made through patience and hard work.  No one embodies this philosophy more than Future Stars coaches Tom Whittemore and Rick DeFrance. 

“There’s a place for everyone in our program, from the superstar athlete to the non-athlete with a good attitude and work ethic,” offered Coach DeFrance.  According to Coach DeFrance, success in wrestling requires more than one or two superstars, “unlike other sports, in a wrestling match, your best wrestler can only score 6 points, so when we say everyone in the line-up is just as valuable as everyone else, we really mean it.” 

To fill those line-ups with capable wrestlers takes time, as all wrestlers develop at different paces, some more gradually than others.  Adds Coach Whittemore: “that’s what Future Stars is all about.  It’s where our wrestlers can develop their skills and knowledge while understanding their responsibility to the team.  It’s the last stop before varsity wrestling, but that doesn’t mean it’s not competitive.” 

Coach Whittemore’s Future Stars wrestlers entered the year-end tournament as one of the better teams in the League, but by no means favored to win the title, “in typical Long Valley fashion, we had a couple very talented kids, but our success is about fielding a good wrestler at just about every weight class.  Everyone counts.”  The team race at the year-end tournament was neck-and-neck, and was in doubt until one of the last matches of the tournament. 

Ultimately, Long Valley’s three Future Stars League Champions – Lucas Lorenz, Jonathan Vazquez, and Anthony Marsilio – propelled the Wolfpack to a 1.5-point (out of 200) win over Mount Olive for Long Valley’s first Future Stars League Championship.  Added Coach Whittemore, “the mission of Future Stars is to develop wrestlers for the next level…but a championship is pretty darn satisfying as well.”

The Long Valley Wrestling program has opportunities for wrestlers from Kindergarten through 8th grade for all skill and experience levels.   Our wrestling family welcomes the athletic and the non-athletic, large and small, short and tall, aggressive and timid.  Our pre-requisites are only a willingness to learn, and work hard.  To learn more about us, please visit www.longvalleywrestling.com, or email Jeff Hill at jhill@mykidscalendar.com.