Senior Night results in dominating victory for wrestling team

The Class of 2023 members—a total of 14—on the Bridgewater-Raritan High School wrestling were honored when Senior Night was held on Wednesday, January 25, at the Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium in Bridgewater.

The ceremony took place before Bridgewater-Rartian rolled past its division rival, Franklin Township High School, 54-16.

 Senior wrestlers Charlie Borchert, Michael Marsigliano, Gabriel Herrera Ramos, Danny Smith, Casey Spina, Rahul Godha, Nick Heuner, Steven Shimko, Alex Stouffer, Christian Gallegos, Aaron Correia, and Owen Simanjuntak joined team manager Tanay Mehrish and team statistician Kailey Hisko who were honored along with their families.

“A well deserving honor for our seniors who have given so much to this program over the last four years,” Bridgewater-Raritan coach Kyle Murphy said. “With a large senior class, these kids help build the foundation of a great team.”

Franklin struck first when Malik Reid won by fall in 57 seconds to open the match at 165 pounds, but Heuner then jumped started Bridgewater-Raritan when he scored an 11-3 major decision at 175 pounds.

 Shimko (190) then gave Bridgewater-Raritan an 8-6 lead when he followed with an 11-3 major decision before Franklin’s Abraham Barahono-Ordonez (215) countered with a pin in 4:53 to give the Warriors a 12-8 lead.

Simanjuntak then scored the go-ahead points for Bridgewater-Raritan when he received  a forfeit victory in the heavyweight bout to give the Panthers a 14-12 lead and the advantage for the remainder of the evening.

Akeo Diaz won his bout by fall in just 12 seconds at 113 pounds and Logan Levine (120 pounds) joined seniors Marsigliano (132), Smith (138), and Spina (144) when the Panthers delivered pins at each bout.

Andrew Adell (106) and Dane Sorensen (150)  won by an 8-4 decision and a 9-0 major decision, respectively. 

One of the most exciting matches occurred in the final bout of the night at 157 pounds when Bridgewater-Raritan’s Oscar Kilgallon forced overtime with the tying point on an escape in the closing seconds of the third period against Solomon Pasteur. With the match knotted at 5-5, Kilgallon then ended Senior Night emphatically with the walk-off takedown with 21.7 seconds remaining in the first one-minute period. His 7-5 decision capped the 54-16 victory .

“A great team effort from top to bottom,” Coach Murphy said. “We are excited to keep the momentum rolling into the weekend.”

Bridgewater-Raritan improved to 8-4 and evened its division record to 2-2.

 Next up for the Panthers will be a Friday home matchup against Bernards High School on January 27 at 6 p.m. A quad match is scheduled for this Saturday, January 28,  at home at 10 a.m.