Matthews Stays Undefeated, Joins Sickles in Winning Goles Wrestling Tournament

Wolfpack Starts 2-2, Defeating Randolph and Morris Knolls

Nick Matthews joined teammate John Sickles in winning the 10-team John Goles Tournament  Friday at Warren Hills High School, improving his record for the wrestling Wolfpack to 9-0. Matthews now has 98  career wins at West Morris Central.  Sickles joined his teammate at the top of the podium, beating previously undefeated Eichtlin Kody of Delaware Valley for the gold.

 “Coach Rossi tells us to be happy with our performance and savor the moment, but never be satisfied,” revealed Matthews. “There’s always work to be done, and we need to keep working towards our goals.”

Cory Fleming, Brandon Carcuffe and Jesse Windt all turned in impressive performances at the highly competitive Goles, earning silver. Freshman Caleb Isemann made his varsity debut, and gained his first varsity win.

The Wolfpack went 2-1 in its first week of dual matches.  Starting with a convincing 47-24 defeat of Randolph, the team then split last Saturday’s tri-match at Roxbury – dominating Morris Knolls 53-24 after losing a last-second heart breaker to the Roxbury Gaels, 28-26.

“Coach (Ken) Rossi was proud of us,” said Carcuffe. “But there is always room for improvement. We have to work on being more aggressive and trying to get and save bonus points because that’s what it’s going to come down to in close matches.”

Fleming was triumphant in marquee matches against state finalist AJ Vindici, and previously-undefeated Devon LaFranco.  Fleming explained, “Overall I felt like the team wrestled well this week. We beat a quality team in Randolph and although we lost to Roxbury, we'll see them again.”

On Saturday, the ‘pack was defeated by Voorhees, dropping to 2-2 on the season. Windt was especially impressive, wrestling up to 220 and improving his record to 8-2 on the season.  Seniors Fleming, Matthews and Carcuffe’s wins improved their season records to a combined 26-3. Dylan Luciano contributed an impressive first period pin.

Adam Kratch (7-5 on the year), Zach McGuire (4-3), David Migliaccio (6-1), John Schade (5-5) and Thomas Stoll (5-3) all made significant contributions in the team’s first weeks.

Ben Yaskulka took first place at the Roxbury JV Tournament Sunday, improving his JV record to 7-1. Cole Solsky gained his first-ever high school victory, and later added another to win the bronze.  The night before, Yaskulka and his brother Noah Yaskulka gave the JV squad its only victories at Voorhees.  Michael Brown and Isemann added impressive JV wins earlier in the week.

The team next wrestles at Mt. Olive on Saturday.

Visit the team on Facebook, www.facebook.com/WMCwrestling