By Joe Hofmann
One of the fun things about covering the Morris County Tournament at the Daily Record for 22 years is catching up with old friends (coaches, wrestlers, refs, fans) who I haven’t seen in a while. Often times, it leads to a trip down memory lane.
Which leads me to a few items that struck me during the finals:
As I watched Hanover Park’s state champion Anthony Cefolo against Delbarton’s Christian Innarella, a trivia question came to my mind:
Who was the last returning state champion to not win in the MCT the following year? A lot of people had a lot of fun with that one Saturday night! Answer below.
And a bonus trivia question: Who beat that returning state champion?
And a double bonus question: Can you name a state champion who didn’t win in the Morris County Tournament the year he won a state title (Not including Cefolo)?
And a double-double bonus question: Who beat that eventual state champion in the MCT?
And how did he do in the states that year? More answers below.
You would think an MCT would be a walk in the park for a state champion but that is not always the case.
The Cefolo-Innarella match was intriguing for a number of reasons: If Innarella had pulled it out, it would have been the second state champion he has defeated in the last 12 months or so. He beat Seton Hall Prep’s Brendan Calas twice last year, including once in the Region 3 finals. Calas recovered and wound up winning his second state championship in AC.
Innarella seemed to turn it up a notch in an effort to pull off the upset, but Cefolo responded the way state champions usually respond against a tough challenger: By keeping his cool and holding off the challenge on the way to a rideout victory.
The irony was, the first time Cefolo had a chance to ride Innarella out in the third OT, the Delbarton wrestler got out in an eyeblink –about one or two seconds. But when Cefolo sensed the victory (riding Innarella for 30 seconds), he was up to the task the next time he had a chance to ride out Innarella.
The other item of intrigue: Back in my very first year covering the finals (1992), Jefferson was so dominant through the lower and middle weights on the way to being the No. 1 team in New Jersey that the standing room only crowd at Roxbury High School actually cheered louder when a Jefferson wrestler didn’t win. They were almost like the Yankees to a lot of people that year.
The Falcons saw the first six or so wrestlers win MCT titles (some of the names: brothers Mark and John Piotrowski, brothers Jeremy and Josh Bailer, cousins Ken and Keith Rossi, Jim McLean).
When Madison’s Dave Packie won his third straight title (around 140 pounds), the crowd cheered louder than normal, almost as if to say, “Finally someone other than Jefferson has won a weight class!”
Delbarton (five straight team titles) has been dominant lately, but not that dominant.
TRIVIA ANSWERS
1. The answer is Roxbury’s Ryan Fikslin (119) in 2006.
2. Fikslin was defeated by Jefferson’s Tyler Milonas, who wound up being a state champion (and an Outstanding Wrestler candidate at Boardwalk Hall) in 2007.
3. Jeremy Bailer became the Falcons first state champion in 1993 (that was the year when there was a blizzard in New Jersey and everyone was forced to remain in Atlantic City for an extra night).
4. West Morris’ Brian McGuire took fourth in the state the year Bailer won it all. McGuire beat Bailer in the MCT finals. At the states, I don’t remember the specifics, but I do recall that former Wolfpack coach Jeff May was livid about a call that went against McGuire in the state semifinals. We could have had a state final involving two Morris County wrestlers.
When was the last time that happened? I can think of one time … but we’ll save that for another blog!
