NJWWA Top 20 – Week of Jan. 26, 2026 – Garden State HS Wrestling

There has been no question so far this season that Delbarton clearly has the best wrestling team in New Jersey.

Now, the Green Wave, after their 31-29 win on Jan. 22 over Faith Christian (Pa.) Academy, have put themselves in the race to be ranked No. 1 in the country. Delbarton (14-0) entered the Faith Christian Academy match ranked No. 7 by flowrestling.org. Faith Christian Academy was ranked No. 2.

Delbarton, which already has wins over No. 12 Christian Brothers Academy, No. 24 St. Peter’s Prep and No. 30 Green Farms (Conn.) Academy), is at No. 4 Blair Academy Thursday night and hosts No. 10 Wyoming (Pa.) Seminary Feb. 6.

The Green Wave will also wrestle nationally-ranked teams in the loaded NJSIAA Non-Public A bracket.

The winner of the Non-Public A bracket Feb. 22 at Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena is likely to finish No. 1 in the New Jersey Wrestling Writers Association.

As it stands now, six of the top seven teams in this week’s NJWWA Top 20 are Non-Public A teams. The other team in the top seven is defending Non-Public B champion and this year’s Non-Public B favorite Camden Catholic at No. 5.

County and area tournament roundup

Last week, was dominated by area and county tournaments.

Among the winners in those tournaments were No. 10 Howell (Shore Conference), No. 12 Mount Olive (Morris County), Seton Hall Prep (Essex County), Old Bridge (Greater Middlesex Conference) and Passaic Tech (Passaic County).

However, the Shore Conference Tournament was missing some key wrestlers. CBA entered only five wrestlers and did not wrestle most of its top wrestlers. Southern did not enter the tournament, which is something it has done every year the SCT has been held as either an individual or dual-meet tournament since 2012, and Red Bank Catholic also did not enter the tournament.

Delbarton did not enter the Morris County Tournament.

Old Bridge’s GMC title was its first.

Key results last week:

Third-ranked St. Peter’s Prep, which was defeated 57-6 by Blair Academy earlier in the week, won the Pine Barren Duals at Shawnee, with victories over No. 15 Lower Cape May (48-21) in the semifinal and No. 9 Delsea (41-24) in the final.

Also, in the Pine Barrens, Delsea defeated No. 20 Red Bank Catholic (39-30) in the semifinal and Lower Cape May defeated RBC (43-27) in the third-place match.

Red Bank Catholic, which last week defeated St. Joseph (Metuchen), which was ranked at the time of that match, Old Bridge and then No. 19 Washington Township, moves into the rankings this week at No. 20.

Southern, ranked No. 8, remained unbeaten with a 43-19 win over No. 16 Jackson Township. It was Jackson Township’s first loss of the season.

St. Joseph (Montvale) had a big week as it defeated No. 7 Paramus Catholic (41-31) on a pin by Ryan Mitchell in the final bout and No. 6 Bergen Catholic 34-32 even though it wrestled without returning state champion JoJo Burke.

Past state medalist Joey Canova made his return to the Bergen Catholic lineup in the St. Joseph (Montvale) match after he sustained a knee injury last year in the Region 1 Tournament.

Key matches this week:

Among the big matches this week are: Southern at CBA Wednesday night; Jackson Township at Howell Wednesday night and a quad meet Saturday at St. Augustine involving Paramus Catholic No. 18 North Hunterdon and St. Augustine.

Here is this week’s NJWWA Top 20 with first place votes in parentheses followed by voting points.

The poll will be posted each Tuesday at 5 a.m. through the dual meet season.

NJWWA voting members in alphabetical order: Donald J. Brower (gardenstatehswrestling.com); Frank D’Esposito (shoreconferencewrestling.com); Steven Falk (Asbury Park Press and app.com); Sean Farrell (The Record and NorthJersey.com); Tom McGurk (Courier Post and courierpostonline.com); Andy Mendlowitz (Home News Tribune, Courier News and MyCentralJersey.com); Michael Weilamann (Open Mike and mikeopen.blogspot.com); Brad Wilson (lehighvalleylive.com).

1 . Delbarton (14-0) (8) 160

2. Christian Brothers Academy (9-1) 152

3. St. Peter’s Prep (8-2) 144

4. St. Joseph (Montvale) (10-4) 133

5. Camden Catholic (9-0) 131

6. Bergen Catholic (6-2) 120

7. Paramus Catholic (7-3) 112

8. Southern (9-0) 104

9. Delsea (11-2) 96

10. Howell (12-1) 88

11. Pope John (7-2) 79

12. Mount Olive (8-2) 70