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Sports

Chatham Loses Matches in Quad Competition

Coach praises team for its individual results.

Chatham Wrestling travelled to Sparta on Saturday to participate in a quad match against Sparta, Kinnelon, and DePaul high schools.  Even though the team's results were disappointing overall, there were some individual results that stood out.

The first match was against DePaul. Justin Engel, David Lappin, and Jeff Fricke picked up wins during the match, but Chatham could not pull out a victory.

"Even though DePaul seemed to overmatch us, I thought that we fought well and had some good individual performances," Head Coach Mike Carbone said. "However, the best performace of the night might have come in defeat with our 215 pounder, Jeff Furbish. I am not one for moral victories, but Jeff went up against the  number two kid in the state and number three kid in the Beast of the East Tournament and wrestled competitively the whole six minutes."

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Furbish was down 5-3 going into the third period and then gave up some points on some desperation moves.

"I think this type of experience will really give him the edge down the road when he has big region matches and, hopefully, big state matches," Carbone said.

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The next match was against Kinnelon. Chatham lost by one point, 40-39, after jumping out to a 39-10 lead.

Carbone said the loss was difficult to stomach.  

"I knew that we had to jump on them early and win the toss-up matches," Carbone said. "But unfortunately, we came away empty handed, and that's the reason we lost the match."

In the final match, against Sparta, Carbone said his team was a bit beat up from the prior two matches and had not recovered from its heartbreaking loss to Kinnelon. Chatham was required to forfeit at times during the match.

"Once again, I thought the kids that wrestled did well, and even in defeat, wrestled tough," Carbone said.

He praised John Elmasri—who increased his weight from 112 to 119 pounds to wrestle a larger opponent—and Dave Lappin for their work. Lappin picked up his third pin of the day during the match.

The team will travel to Butler on Monday for a 7 p.m. match and then has a home match against Hanover Park at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

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