Emerson/Park Ridge poses with the NJIC wrestling championship trophy. (Photo: Darren Cooper)
By: Darren Cooper – Record Sports Columnist
PARK RIDGE – A battle of county champs foretold the winner of the conference title.
For Emerson/Park Ridge, now the focus shifts to a state gold.
Reining Bergen champ Zach Lewis defeated Passaic champ Frank Negrini 10-2 at 195 pounds to highlight Emerson/Park Ridge’s 55-15 win over Pompton Lakes in the North Jersey Interscholastic Conference championship match Wednesday night.
The co-op program has won all three league titles since the format was created, beating Pompton Lakes each time by significant margins.
“Our young kids have gotten good fast,” said Emerson/Park Ridge coach Stan Woods. “I said at the beginning of the year that our season would depend on that because we had six sophomores as a freshman in our line-up.”
Zach Lewis of Emerson/Park Ridge sizes up Pompton Lakes’ Frank Negrini at 195 pounds. (Photo: Darren Cooper)
Lewis, a senior from Park Ridge, is the hammer in the line-up. Against Negrini, he was able to get takedowns in all three periods and put Negrini on his back briefly in the second.
“I wrestled him last year in the NJIC final,” said Lewis. “I knew I was the better wrestler and I had more in the tank, so I just wanted to get after him and dominate.”
“Negrini is a great athlete,” said Woods. “But Zach is in a different category as a wrestler.”
Pompton Lakes made an early charge, winning two of the first four matches by fall by Ramon Hernandez (182) and Remy Brancato (285) and led Emerson/Park Ridge 12-10.
But few teams can equal the strength of Emerson/Park Ridge’s lightweights and they put on a show starting at 106 winning seven straight bouts highlighted by first period pins by Thomas Comeau, Nick Babin and Logan and Luke Mazzeo.
That allowed Emerson/Park Ridge to establish a 43-12 lead and clinch the title.
Now both schools can focus on the Team State Tournament that begins next week. Woods said his team may wrestle fellow state power South Plainfield this weekend, but there are some logistics that need to be worked out. Emerson/Park Ridge is the top seed in North 1, Group 1 and could be looking at a showdown against Kittatinny for the sectional title.
Should Emerson/Park Ridge get through, Woods knows Paulsboro is lurking in Toms River.
“We can win the section, but it will be hard to beat Paulsboro,” said Woods.
Before the match, seniors on both teams were recognized since this was technically their last regular season match. Woods has six seniors, but feels like the program is in good shape.
“We graduate six, but we have some good young kids coming,” said Woods. “We are going to have trouble in the upper weights, we graduate all the big boys and we lose Zach [Lewis] and Zach [Marck] and they will be difficult to replace. We don’t have a lot of big kids like that walking around.”
For Lewis, the next few weeks will be the coda to his wrestling career. He hopes to play football in college.
“I will miss it,” said Lewis. “But there’s definitely a lot of sacrifice in wrestling. Its probably the hardest sport. Our practices are intense. They turn the heat up and you just go at it. I think it’s probably the hardest practice in New Jersey.”
