The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
North Penn cruises past Tennent
TOWAMENCIN » With three forfeits and nice performances from district-ranked wrestlers, the North Penn wrestling Knights cruised to a 54-18 blowout over the William Tennent Panthers.
Each team had two wrestlers ranked in the District 1 polls on PA-Wrestling.com.
For North Penn, No. 3 Owen Verespy and No. 2 Patrick O’Neil had hardearned victories in their respective bouts.
For William Tennent, No. 3 AJ Tamburrino and No. 1 Anthony Colella both had victories as well.
The match started with a bang at 170 pounds as Knight Reid Dentner only needed 57 seconds to pin William Tennent’s Mohamed Djabri and give the Knights a 6-0 lead.
At 182 pounds, it came down to the very last second for North Penn’s Garret Quallet to get the 6-5 decision. After being up 4-1 heading into the third period, Panther Kyle Clement tied the match at 5-5 with eight seconds left.
With one second left, Quallet got up to his feet to earn the thrilling victory and increase the North Penn lead to 9-0.
The Panthers got on the board at 195 pounds when Yusuf Aladinov pinned North Penn’s Dan Sibel in the third period to make the team score 9-6.
After No. 2 Ryan Cody earned a forfeit at 285 pounds for the Knights, North Penn’s Eddie Galang did everything he could to get a pin or even a technical fall, but had to settle with a 19-6 major decision victory over Panther Carlton Walters.
North Penn increased the lead to 31-6 after Jabez Chae earned a forfeit at 113 pounds.
North Penn continued to rack up the team points when Nolan Roberts scored a pin in the second period over Laith Abunima at 120 pounds.
William Tennent finally stopped the bleeding at 126 pounds as No. 1 ranked Colella had a tough 3-0 victory over unranked Alec Schrum.
William Tennent’s Ryan Gladwin and North Penn’s Nophir Harrell had a classic at 132 pounds.
After being down 8-3 heading into the third period, Harrell had three takedowns to make the score 10-9 with under 30 seconds left.
However, Gladwin got the reversal in the last 15 seconds to seal the 12-9 decision victory.
At 138 pounds, No. 3 Tamburrino earned a pin in 2:59 over Knight Collin McGuire.
Tamburrino was pleased with his performance on the road despite his team being blown out.
“I felt really good,” said Tamburrino. “It felt really great to work on my shots. I felt a little dis-hearted for the team losing, but I felt very energetic during my match.”
At 145 pounds, North Penn’s Jarret Niedosik came back with a pin after being down 2-0 for most of the match.
After Panther Erik Laughlin received a forfeit, No. 2 ranked O’Neil finished the match at 160 pounds with a 16-1 tech fall in 4:45 over Shamil Aladinov to give North Penn the 54-18 home victory.
O’Neil was thrilled with his victory in his first home match of the year.
“I definitely got excited wrestling in my first home match this year,” said O’Neil. “My goal is to get up on the podium at states and just taking it match by match as the season rolls on.”
William Tennent wrestling head coach Anthony Tamburrino, who is also AJ’s father, was fine with the way his team performed despite getting crushed.
“We still have some things to work on but we’re a young team,” said Tamburrino. “It’s good to have a young team in a lot of ways because they are slowing getting their positioning correct but it comes at a price in the beginning and we have to push them a little harder. The program is doing very well and the wrestlers will pretty much fall into place.”
“I’ve been coaching AJ since he was five years old,” added Tamburrino. “So that’s already a hardened relationship. So when I’m here, I’m the coach and when I’m home, I’m dad. There’s some advantages for being a coach and a parent like polishing my coaching skills and treating the wrestlers as good athletes.”
North Penn head coach Robert Shettsline was thrilled with the way his team performed at home.
“The team did well and they were very aggressive against William Tennent,” said Shettsline. “The fans and the middle school made the wrestlers very hyped up.”
William Tennent now looks forward to practice for a whole week before traveling to Central Bucks South 7 p.m. Wednesday.
North Penn will be in action Saturday and Sunday at West Orange High School in New Jersey for the Sam Cali Invitational.