Despite Low Numbers, Wrestling Teams Come Up Big

It was a successful day for wrestlers in the Kinnelon-Butler Patch area on Saturday, as five wrestlers from and medaled in the Mount Olive Wrestling Tournament at Mount Olive High School.

Some may see five wrestlers, from a combined two schools, placing in a tournament as a less than successful day. But when considering that the two schools headed into the tournament with a combined eight wrestlers participating, the results' impressiveness speaks for itself.

Of the five total medalists, each school was represented by a champion as Butlers' Tyler Descafano (125) and Kinnelon's Luke Maroldi (140) each earned their way to the winner's circle.

Descafano, Butler's senior 119-pounder (who wrestled at 125 pounds on Saturday), stopped Mark Reyes of Bloomfield, 13-5, to secure his first ever medal at the Mount Olive Tournament.

"I'm tired and exhilarated," Descafano said after his finals win. "This is the first time I've placed in this tournament in two years."

After an early tournament struggle, the junior put it on himself to pick up the pace and eventually would cruise through his finals match against Reyes,

"In the first round, I didn't do as well as I wanted, but I went out in the second round and won in the last 30 seconds to try and make up for it," he said. "In the finals I just tried to wrestle tough, just like in the second round, and I came out with the victory."

"I felt [like I was in control] on the mat," he added. "At first, he was coming at me hard, but then I just decided to take control."

Maroldi, one of only two Kinnelon wrestlers to participate in the tournament, made easy work of all three opponents that he faced on Saturday, on his way to repeating as tournament champion.

"Luke's been working real hard," Kinnelon head coach Brian McDonald said. "He won this tournament last year and he's got some big goals for this season, so this is just one of his stepping stones."

In the first round, Maroldi stopped Newton's Logan Morales by technical fall, 16-0. In round two, Miroldi again rolled, this time over Mount Olive's Dylan Offerding, 7-2.

But in the finals, Maroldi, who says his goal this season is to wrestle in the finals of every tournament he enters, was utterly dominant as he recorded a quick first period pin of Old Tappan's Jack McCann, leading to his first tournament win of the young season.

"It took a little bit to warm up, but I think it was a good start to my season," he said. "I'm hoping that I can keep this momentum going."

But even after a dominant tournament, Maroldi is ready to get back to work and tweak some mistakes that he noticed.

"I've got work on a couple of things in practice that I'm a little shaky with," he said. "All in all, I think I had a good tournament."

Also medaling for wrestlers of the Kinnelon-Butler Patch area was Butler's 189-pounder Adam Zandonella (second place), 130-pounder Tyler Loranger (third place) and 140-pounder Matt Polhemus (third place).

"For a small school, having two guys in the finals, we couldn't be happier with ourselves," Butler head coach John O'Shea said.

While both programs are lacking wrestlers, each teams' head coach was pleased with his squads effort and results.

"We were better than expected," O'Shea said. "There was really only one match that we thought we could have won….we're down four of our seniors who didn't come out, so we're going to have four holes. Team-wise, we're going to struggle, but we've got a couple of good individuals."

"I thought we performed pretty well," McDonald said. "Any time you can get a tournament champ, that's a good thing. We had one guy out of two. We had a couple of guys beat up and we kept our freshman on JV today. You could say we only had one, I'd like to say we have 50 percent."