At last year’s districts, Montville’s 113-pound Luke Manieri set the early tone with a win and 285-pound Alex Husti closed the deal with a victory on the way to the Mustangs winning the team title.
The two followed the same script at the Linn Crawn Tournament – and the Mustangs came away with an impressive team win.
Manieri and Husti won their respective weights and the Mustangs went a perfect 7-0 in the finals and rolled to a dominating win.
“This,” Husti said, “was a big win for our team.”
Husti went into his finals bout against Kittatinny’s talented Trevor Greenwood on edge. The reason? He didn’t want to be the first Mustang to lose in the finals.
Talk about pressure!
“Seven in the finals, and I’m thinking, ‘I can’t be the only Montville kid to lose in the finals,’” he said. “It was my first time in the finals in that tournament, so I was a little jumpy in the first period and then I calmed down.”
He did just that on the way to a 1-0 win to cap a great day for Montville, which rolled up 192½ points to take the title ahead of runnerup Morris Hills (173 ½), host Kittatinny (158 ½), Roxbury (143) and Randolph (111 ½).
“We have a very good team,” 113-pound champion Luke Manieri said. “We are doing amazing.”
Manieri started the Mustangs championship run when he beat Kittatinny’s Kyle White, 11-7.
“I didn’t think the kid would be as good as he was,” Manieri said. “He was fairly strong. I had to push the pace.”
Manieri, a Morris Knolls Tournament champion last week, began the match with a double-leg takedown but White escaped and then took him down. Manieri got out to start the second period, went for an underhook, and then spun around and took him down to go ahead.
Manieri tripped White for a late takedown on the way to a, 11-7 win.
“It was a nice win at a good tournament,” he said. “After winning, I had to go to the cafeteria and get some pasta and meatballs.”
“Luke is a gamer,” coach Brian Kapral said. “He is high energy and fun to coach. He is extremely supportive of his teammates. You can see our kids cheering each other on. It adds to the success. The finals were fun. They were around the mat, yelling for each other. Everyone on the team was into it. We love going up there. Kittatinny is a fun place to compete.”
The tournament was loaded with many Montville wrestlers in the finals and a large group of Mustangs at matside, rooting their teammates on.
Most of the team came out for wrestling in high school.
“We have a good senior and junior class and we knew we’d be decent,” Kapral said. “We have seven brand new varsity starters. Only two of the guys wrestled youth in Montville. Many started wrestling in high school.”
Montville took off in the middle and upper weights.
Vin Palmiero (132), who won his weight at Morris Knolls last week, came out of the third seed and majored the No. 2 seed (Roxbury’s Jaedon Reilly), 10-1, and then toppled Kittatinny’s top-seeded Callum Trilling in the finals, 6-4.
“Vincent put the time in and he has been a shocker so far,” Kapral said. “He is 2 for 2 in tournaments. He’s wrestling really well for himself. He put in the offseason work. He made his technique better and he is coming through in these matches.”
At 138, Montville’s Alex Rodriguez pinned Morris Hills’ Andrew Mucci in 3:57.
“He is technical, athletic, quick and fast, and loves being on his feet,” Kapral said. “He is real smooth and fun to watch. He was not challenged at all. He scored a ton of points on takedowns.”
Montville’s Michael Frank (150) came out of the third seed and won by technical fall over Morris Hills’ top-seeded Alexander Casarrubias in the finals, 17-2. Frank had pinned North Warren’s No. 2 seed Cole Castles in the semis in 2:17.
“I’ve coached Michael Frank since first and second grade,” Kapral said. “As he is maturing, he is making big jumps. He had been 113-120 pounds and is now up to 150 but handling the weight gain well.”
Montville’s Gage Dembowski (165) was losing, 3-0, but flattened Sparta’s Trevor Ekeland in 3:53 to win the weight.
“Gage was the 1 seed, but has come through as a junior and has been picking it up,” Kapral said. “Being down in the finals and turning the kid and pin was a big step in the right direction. He took top and pinned the kid.”
Montville’s Sean Zamota (215) majored Roxbury’s top-seeded Patrick Shivas in the finals, 12-4, after beating Morris Hills’ No. 2 seed Matthewn Ochoa in the semis, 2-0.
“Sean has always been a backup but he has had success with bigger guys,” Kapral said. “It’s clicking for him. He had been a backup to Sean Elsmore (who graduated last year) but Elsmore was injured a lot and that helped Sean prepare. He loves the sport. He is figuring it out more and more. Winning today gave him more confidence.”
Husti, coming off a very successful football season, ended the tournament by squeaking out his win over Greenwood.
“We have talked about that,” Kapral said. “Excelling in football carries over. He loves to compete. He’ll wrestle anyone. He is young to the sport and picking it up fast. He is getting better and better.”
