South’s Thompson among 5 CVC grapplers into semis
FLEMINGTON >> In one of the Colonial Valley Conference’s better showings of late, five of its wrestlers won their Region V quarterfinal bouts Friday night and are now within onemorevictoryofadvancing to Atlantic City under the NJSIAA’snewsetupbywhichthe top four qualify for states.
Advancing into Saturday morning’s semifinals at the Hunterdon Central fieldhouse were Hopewell Valley Chris Lanciano (106) and Will Ortman (220), Princeton’s Alec Bobchin (126) and James Verbyest (160), and West Windsor South’s Sean Thompson (138).
The two Hopewell and Princeton wrestlers were both expected to advance if you go by the seeding. Thompson was not,butcameupbigbyavenging an 8-1 loss to Hunterdon Central’s Bryce Hall in the districts last weekend with a 5-3 victory over the Red Devil senior.
Thompson took the lead in the second period with a takedown and then brought it home with an escape and takedown with :05 remaining in the third period to ice it.
“Last week he (Hall) got me in a bad position with his headlocks,” said Thompson after recording his 104th career win. “I didn’t care if I won or lost. I just wanted to go out there and go after it.”
Thompson’s victory produced one of several tough losses for Hunterdon Central, which also saw Vince Romaniello (132) and Kevin Ciresa (145) get picked off.
Next up for Thompson is Bound Brook hammer Robert Cleary (32-3), who sits atop a bracket that also includes Delaware Valley’s Matt Kolonia (37-1).
Lanciano (33-3) reached his semifinal with a solid 6-0 victory over West Windsor South’s Brandon Murray and will now face Middletown North’s Tyler Klinsky after he knocked off the top seed.
Lanciano is an interesting story. After wrestling at 113 throughout the year, he beat Hunter Martel in a very competitive wrestle-off to see who would go at 106 for districts.
Teammate Ortman cruised to a 6-2 win over New Brunswick’s Javon Mercado. Should he win his semifinal, Ortman will almost certainly take on Hunterdon Central’s topseeded Victor Lacombe in Saturday afternoon’s final.
Bobchin remained undefeated, but did not wrestle one of his better bouts as he had trouble getting out from bottom before holding on to 3-2 win over Thomas Tarrantino of Pingry.
The winning point came in the third period when Tarrantino cut Bobchin in the hope of recording a match-winning takedown he was never able to get. Next up for Bobchin (320) is Hunterdon Central’s Peter Nace.
As for Verbeyst, his record is now 34-0 after he won by major decision. By far Princeton’s all-time winningest wrestler with a total that now stands at 114, Verbeyst will take on Michael Petite (32-2) of Piscataway.
In addition to Murray, also knocked into the wrestle-backs from the CVC were Princeton’s Dan Monahan (120), West Windsor South’s Steven O’Campo (152), and Hopewell’s Ryan Butcavage (138) and Ben Markulec (195).