Shore Conference Wrestling Results

A sensational year for Shore Conference High School wrestling ended
in Atlantic City Sunday with six individual state champions and a host of other place winners. Heading up the local contingent were 119-pounder Vinnie DellaFave of Toms River East and Manchester heavyweight Jimmy Lawson, who made it back-to-back state championships. For DellaFave he ends his high school career with a 145-7 record and now takes his talents to Rutgers University. Lawson meanwhile has another season at Manchester which is bad news to all the other big guys in New Jersey plus he’s a major force on the football field as well.

Football is of course the future for Southern Regional’s Glenn Carson who is headed to Penn State on a full scholarship to play linebacker. But there was this unfinished business on the wrestling mat for Carson who lost in the finals as both a sophomore and junior. He exercised that demon by winning the 215-pound championship Sunday and now heads to Happy Valley a happy warrior.

Brick Memorial won a state Group 4 Championship last month and ended a very successful season by having two state champions. Steve Santos claimed the 152-pound title to finish a perfect 43-0 season and later cheered on teammate Mike Morales, who like he did in the districts and regions faced Point Boro’s Jordan Beverly in an all-Ocean County 130-pound final.
Beverly won the first meeting but Morales captured the next two, including
a 5-4 decision yesterday as the junior claims a state title.

It was a fitting conclusion to a magical season for Long Branch that Green Wave junior 160-pounder Nick Visicaro would rally for a 7-6 victory and claim the school’s first individual state championship since 1986. Earlier in the day Long Branch was introduced as the #1 ranked team in the state and their fiery coach Danny George was named the New Jersey Coach-of-the-Year.

Not only did the shore area produce six of the 14 state champions but 3rd place finishes went to Mark Maestry of TR South, Raritan’s Dan Seidenberg, Southern’s Frank Miele and Brian Broderick and Scott Festtejo, Jon Robertson and Bill George of Long Branch. All told 26 of the 42 wrestlers who made it to Atlantic City ended up as medal winners…quite an impressive performance.