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Health & Fitness

Chatham Youth Wrestling: Bright Spots In Loss To Mendham

Chatham Wrestling

On Wednesday January 9, 2013 the undefeated Chatham Cougars played host to the undefeated Mendham Patriots. Having defeated West Orange, Roxbury and Berkeley Heights, the Cougars were on a collision course with one of the power houses in the North Jersey Youth Wrestling League. Although Chatham would eventually lose this match, there were many bright spots in the loss. The match started off with the most exciting match of the evenng, Teddy Joel versus the undefeated Eren Sement (4-0) at 55 lbs. Teddy was winning this match 2-1 in the third period. However, with ten seconds left in the match, Teddy tried to switch hands on a half and wound up with a full nelson on his opponent. After the referre awarded one point to Mendham the match went into overtime. After a scorelees three periods in overtime the match then went into double overtime. That's eight minutes of nonstop wrestling. For a college wrestler, that's a long time. For a 7 year old it's an eternity. Teddy chose the bottom position to start the first period in double overtime. With the crowd screaming, "Teddy, Teddy" he escaped for one point and the win, 3-2. Aedan, was the next Joel to take his opponent into overtime. Down by points in the third period, Aedan (75) never stopped working and tied the match 8-8. Unfortunately, Aedan was taken down and lost 10-8. Not to be upstaged by his younger brothers, PJ Joel (85) also took his opponent into overtime. PJ was losing to his opponent 2-1 with 30 seconds left in the third period. PJ, unable to turn his opponet for back points, allowed him to escape to take the match to their feet. With less than 30 seconds left, PJ took his opponent down to his back with a headlock to score 5 points to win the match 6-3. Chatham would earn18 more points on the strength of a second period pin from Luke Ciccarelli (116), a first period pin from Matthew Tether (123) and a third period pin from Tim Rohe (137). According to Nonnenmacher and Ciccarelli, ' we knew this was going to be a very aggressive and touch match. Despite the loss, all of our boys wrestled well".

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