Photo courtesy of Zarcone Photography
The historical 2024-2025 wrestling season has continued on at Bridgewater-Raritan High School.
A school-record 11 Bridgewater-Raritan wrestlers placed and advanced to the Region 4 tournament when they competed at the District 14 tournament that was held on Saturday, February 22, at North Hunterdon Regional High School in Annandale.
Four of the Bridgewater-Raritan wrestlers claimed District 14 gold medals.
The District 14 champions were:
Matthew McCann at 150 pounds.
Matthew DiEduardo at 165 pounds
Lerrod Smalls at 190 pounds
Trent Levash at 215 pounds
Meanwhile, for Bridgewater-Raritan, Logan Levin was the runner-up at 138 pounds and the third-place finishers were Akeo Diaz at 106 pounds, Lucas Pelc at 113 pounds, Andrew Adell at 120 pounds, Zachar Stouffer at 126 pounds, Mark Marsigliano at 132 pounds and heavyweight Gabriell Medina-Coello.
All 11 of these Bridgewater-Raritan wrestlers earned a ticket to the Region 4 tournament at Union High School that will begin on Friday, February 28, and end on Saturday, March 1, which is the schedule for all eight regions in New Jersey.
The top four finishers in each weight class at each of the eight regions qualify for the state tournament that will be wrestled March 6-8 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
Farel Cespedes did not qualify for Region 4 but his sound fourth-place finish at 175 pounds contributed to Bridgewater Raritan's second-place showing in the final team standings with 212.5 points,
As expected, the team champion was the host school, North Hunterdon, which came off winning the Group 4 state championship on Sunday, February 16, at Rutgers University. North Hunterdon claimed the District 14 team title with 240 points.
Finishing third behind North Hunterdon and Bridgewater-Raritan in the 10-school field was the Region 4 host, Union, which posted 164.5 points.
This memorable winter has already featured a school-record 21 victories and a first-ever trip to the state group championship match for Bridgewater-Raritan.
Bridgewater-Raritan closed its dual season with a 21-8 record when it fell to powerful Southern Regional High School, 58-18, in the Group 5 state championship match at Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway on Sunday, February 16. That result presented Southern Regional with its third straight Group 5 state title.
Bridgewater-Raritan also captured its first state sectional title since 2016 when it defeated Bayonne High School, 57-13, on Wednesday, February 12 at Bridgewater-Rartian’s Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium.
Two nights later the Panthers were home again and rallied to defeat Monroe Township High School, 36-33, in the Group 5 state semifinals. District champion McCann delivered the winning points with his fall at 3:10 in the final bout at 157 pounds.
The guiding force behind this historical drive has been Bridgewater-Raritan’s head coach, Kyle Murphy.
He was thrilled with how his team performed in District 14.
“I am very impressed with the team's efforts. We had an outstanding third-/fourth-place round, winning six of seven,” Coach Murphy revealed. “The energy the team brought was outstanding. We advanced a school-record 11 to the regions. It was great to see that the hard work the kids have been putting in all year has paid off.”