St. John’s Prep caps off undefeated season by winning Div. 1 state wrestling title

St. John’s Prep came out of the gate flying and never looked back.

The undefeated Eagles (17-0) won the first five matches and went on to defeat New Bedford, 63-9, to capture the Division 1 state wrestling team. The victory was No. 778 in the career of St. John’s Prep head coach Manny Costa, putting him one ahead of current Melrose coach Larry Tremblay.

“This was our first MIAA state title,” Costa said. “We love to dual meet. We’re a dual meet team. We’ve been in the finals eight out of the last 10 years, so for us this is the state title. You could win the individual tournament with a few good guys in your lineup but to win a dual meet title, you need a complete team.”

St. John’s jumped out to a quick 24-0 lead thanks to falls by Garrett Dunn (182 pounds), Zach Richardson (225) and Alex Schaublin (106) and decisions by Dylan Greenstein (195) and Charlie Smith (heavyweight).

New Bedford got their first points on the board when All-Scholastic Damase Amaral earned a forfeit at 113. Then the Eagles sent out their stud middleweights and never looked back. Tyler Knox, Nick Curley, and Elias Hajali secured pins at 120, 126, and 132, respectively, before Adam Schaeublin won via technical fall at 138.

The visitors last points came at 145 where Jizaiah Lopes gutted out a 4-0 decision but the match was already out of reach. Rawson Iwanicki (152) and Cam Cummings (170) picked up pins sandwiched around a 13-0 win by Jordan Young at 160 to round out the meet.

“I wasn’t expecting much out of this season,” Iwanicki said. “I didn’t expect these many people to come out so it feels good to have a good turnout. Manny has done an excellent job pushing us to where we needed to be to win this title.”

Having four seniors coach Costa knew it would be no easy task keeping the guys focused on the task at hand.

“That was the toughest part about this year,” Costa said. “Our seniors have been out of school since May 8. They’re ready to go to college, they have jobs, but they really wanted to go out with a state title. Honestly they wanted to see us get that first MIAA team title.”

182: Garett Dunn (SJP) fall 2:51 Edgar Martinez (NB)
195: Dylan Greenstein (SJP) dec. 6-2 Jose Bonilla (NB)
220: Zach Richardson (SJP) fall 2:45 Naji Guzman (NB)
HVY: Charlie Smith (SJP) dec. 3-0 Luis Lopez (NB)
106: Alex Schaeublin (SJP) fall :42 Luis Garcia (NB)
113: Damase Amaral (NB) forfeit
120: Tyler Knox (SJP) fall 1:14 Alex Teixiera (NB)
126: Nick Curley (SJP) fall 5:10 Jacob Duval (NB)
132: Elias Hajali (SJP) fall 4:38 Nathanyel Caron (NB)
138: Adam Schaeublin (SJP) tech 20-5 Yuan Colon (NB)
145: Jizaiah Lopez (NB) dec. 4-0 Ethan Barnes-Felix (SJP)
152: Rawson Iwanicki (SJP) fall :48 Steven Morales (NB)
160: Jordan Young (SJP) major dec. 13-0 Miguel Rodriguez (NB)
170: Cam Cummings (SJP) fall :28 Mitchell Thompson (NB)

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2TgzQyU