Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Wrestling: Morris County Tournament Predictions!

As we get ready for the Morris County Wrestling Tournament, I wanted to take a moment and honor Jim McLean who was one of the area's best wrestler's in the early 90's. McLean died tragically in a skiing accident in Colorado. McLean graduated in 1993 and went on to to wrestle at Rutgers where he was a team captain. After that he went on to become a doctor of Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation. He was 33 years young.



Thanks for the memories Jimmy!

Being a huge competitor, I am know McLean would be really into this tourney. And I know all the kids below will not disappoint his memory. This will be a really great tournament and there are tons of talented boys competing this year. But we've been watching all these kids and feel we have some nice predictions below. Remember, our motto at this site is heart counts more than winning. So I am really looking to see some great matches! Good luck boys and here are our predictions:


103 -- Steve Godine (Whippany Park) vs. Mike Intile (Montville)
Godine is having a nice season and deserves to represent himself at the 103 weight break. But Mike Intile will have more points when it is all said and done.
PICK: Intile

112 -- Dave Arbelaez (Morris Knolls) vs. Eric Fajardo (Boonton)
Arbelaez beats Jeff Canfora of Delby to get to the finals. Then Eric "Mr. Fantastico" Fajardo will take down Arbelaez.
PICK: Fajardo

119 -- Clint Donnelly (Kinnelon) vs. Kevin Collins (Randolph)
Kevin "Phil" Collins earns a birth in the final round. But Clint "Eastwood" Donnelly gets the win.
PICK: Donnelly

125 -- Dan Herr (Morris Knolls) vs. Dmitri Gizas (Dover)
Dmitri Gizas squeaks into the final round of the MCT. But Dan Herr takes the prize.
PICK: Herr

130 -- Joe Ficchi (Whippany Park) vs. Tom Glancey (Mendham)
Ficchi is nursing injuries. But just like Ralph Macheo in the final round of the Karate Kid, he will save his best moves for last. Glancey has made a name for himself this year and I see him making it to the final round. But the Feech wins in dramatic fashion.
PICK: Feech

135 -- Jude Tropona (Pequannock) vs. Kyle Hussey (Parsippany)
Jude Tropona has wrestling in his blood. But Kyle Hussey is a total gamer. I see this as one of the better match's in the MCT. Hussey's dramatics over HP last week will keep him rolling.
PICK: Hussey

140 -- Kyle Bieg (Randolph) vs. Rich Szymczak (Hanover Park).
Bieg will have a tough time against Rich "The Polish Pinner" Szymczak. But he comes away with the MCT title at this weight break.
PICK: Bieg

145 -- 1. Nick Bach (Parsippany) vs. Chris Tracy (Hanover Park).
Nick Bach will upset Ponomarev to get to the final round. But Chris Tracy will take down Bach.
PICK: Tracy

152 -- Andrew Conley (Madison) vs. Jake Gruebert (Hanover Park)
Both tough wrestlers. I think both these guys are deserving of a win here. But I am picking Conley sqeaking out more points.
PICK: Conley

160 -- Zach Garripoli (Roxbury) vs. Kevin Orchard (Mendham).
Garripoli gets to the final round with ease. While Orachard works hard to eek into the final round. But I am calling Orchard works too hard to make it to the finals to let one last match get by him.
PICK: Orchard

171 -- Kyle Kaufmann (Madison) vs. Will Larusso (Roxbury).
Will Larusso has been strong all year. He will deservedly make it to the finals. But Kyle "Killer" Kaufmann will make sure Larusso stays in second place.
PICK: Kaufmann

189 -- Chris Lloyd (Morristown) vs. Brian Byrne (Mendham)
I see Sal Carfaro of WMC getting far but Byrne and Lloyd face off in the final round. Lloyd is the looming favorite in this match. But no wrestler is hotter or has been working harder coming into this tourney than Byrne. This will be one of the best matches of the night, but I see Byrne's quickness being the difference.
PICK: Byrne

215 -- Mike Suk (Randolph) vs. Adam Hodge (West Morris)
Hodge is having as nice of a high school athletic career as you could ask for. Just a tough kid with the skill and smarts. But Suk is like Mr. Perfect of the WWF in the early 90's. Every aspect of his game is polished. He will make sure he gets this year's title at the 215 weight.
PICK: Suk

Hwt -- Joe Serrao (Parsippany) vs. Doug Meringer (Hanover Park)
Serrao beat Meringer earlier in the year. But Doug "Macho Man" Meringer learned a lot from that match. Lucky for Serrao there are no top ropes in HS wrestling. But I still see Meringer winning in dramatic fashion.
PICK: Meringer

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

i completely disagree with this. especially at 130 and 135. First thing is that Hussey is going 130. Second thing, what about McNeil and Vitale. I think those three have to be the top three.

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing Vitale should be here.

Suk must be a better rassler than a QB...

Arnie Shaw said...

Admittedly I went for mostly underdogs. I actually did not feel comfortable in my knowledge in this year's wrestling corps to post much about wrestling. But I have gotten quite a few emails from people asking me to write something so I figured I'd make predictions of this year's MCT tourney.

But I am very interested to see how my pics come out. I am not totally clueless so I would like to see how some of my pics come out.

I do think Byrne and Ficchi will go far.

Anonymous said...

A little debate is good, so people should definitely post their disagreements with UR's predictions here. I don't know anything about wrestling except that it is a tough fucking sport to play. The eating requirements, the danger of califlower ear, and just the sport itself is exhausting. I don't know how these kids do it but it's impressive.

Regardless, from my understanding Randolph and Roxbury produce a lot of good wrestlers (and have a huge rivalry) so my money is on some of those kids.

And I know this is completely unrelated, but I just rented "3:10 to Yuma" and it was fucking awesome.

Fakehead out.

Arnie Shaw said...

Fakehead, if there were a weight break for J.O.'s I would pick you to be pinned in the first round.

Unruly out

Anonymous said...

At this point I'm so fat I wouldn't even be in the heavyweight catagory. I'm in the Andre the Giant division as far as fatness goes. I need to start taking some diet pills or something, because I don't have time to exercise. Sometimes I wish I were in High School again, I had a six pack and my whole life ahead of me. I sure would have done things differently in some respects.

Oh yeah, Iron Hills Sports rocks!

Arnie Shaw said...

Bro, you also had Arnold Sized Pecs...not that I noticed...not that if I did there would be anything wrong with that.

At any rate, I have the perfect solution for your weight problem. Why don't you call me and come over to the dark side.

I am down 20 lbs from last year and am now starting to put on some solid muscle.

Anonymous said...

I need some afedrine or whatever was banned. It's a win win, I either lose weight or I have a heart attack and die.

I am not taking Herb-a-life dude, although I have heard it is a great product and my sister's cousin lost 28 pounds with it. If anyone else wants herb-a-life they should talk to Unruly.

Anonymous said...

I was actually talking about HGH.