Cranford Varsity Wrestling 2019-2020 Season Recap
Submitted by Bobby Bulger “Bulge”, Cranford Wrestling Alumni
To recap the 2019-20 season the Cranford Cougars finished 16-5 in what was considered a rebuilding year. Cranford’s motto is “we don’t rebuild, we reload.” 14 weight classes saw many first-year varsity wrestlers in and out of the weight class. Injuries, illness and adversity was part of the season as well.
We beat Park! This is always a goal of every Cougars team. At season’s start we finished 2nd in the Kearny Tournament and 10th in the prestigious George Bossi Lowell Holiday Tournament in Mass with Max Nock taking an impressive 2nd place. We finished 2nd in the UCC Union County Conference losing our dual meet to Westfield in the conference championship. What the Cougars did achieve, against all odds and expert predictions was win a 6th straight UCT Union County Tournament by beating out 2nd place Westfield along with the rest of the county. We won the District 14 Title by defeating 2nd place finisher Westfield again. To quote Meatloaf, “2 out of 3 ain’t bad!” It’s actually awesome! We made the semi-finals of the N2 G4 NJSIAA State Sectional tournament and lost to eventual Group 4 State Champion and 3rd ranked in the state North Hunterdon.
Our five losses were all to teams that hosted State Sectional Title matches. We crowned 2 individual UCT county champs and 4 District 14 champs. We dominated both the UCT and our District. We qualified three wrestlers for the NJSIAA State Tournament in AC in Region 4 3rdplace finishers Colin Murray 145, Max Nock 170 and 4th place finisher Evan Kanterman 195. Two others finished 5th just missing the cut for states, Luke Digiovanni 138 and Justin Alpaugh-Mclean 182.
We know there is still “more to get”, and head coach Pat Gorman and his coaching staff, and Kevin Murray and his coaches in the lower ranks are working on that daily. Our goal as always is state relevance and with over 120 wrestlers in our PAL and Middle School program, we look forward to a bright future. For the 2020 Cranford Cougars, this has truly been a season that many never saw coming. Congratulations to Pat and our entire staff and team.
The 2019-20 season was head Coach Pat Gorman’s 9th season at the helm of Cougars wrestling. A Cougar Alumnus, Pat has helped to restore Cranford’s tradition of being a powerhouse in the county, conference and district. His coaching staff includes alumnus and 30-year assistant coach Steve Van Dam, honored as District 14 Assistant Coach of Year for his many years of service, Derek Francavilla, and alumni Corey Markovitch and Julien Campo. The 2020 team recorded Pat Gorman’s 150th win at the helm. A tremendous achievement for Pat, and he leads all Cougars Head coaches with the highest winning percentage in Cougars history of 77.3%.
The 2020 team did not recognize captains, and truly put forth a “team effort” that lead to their success. Leadership was provided by seniors including county champion 182 Justin Alpaugh-Mclean and four-year varsity starter and UCT and District 14 champion 195 Evan Kanterman. Evan would finish 4th in Region 4 and qualify for the NJSIAA State tournament at 195. The other 4-year varsity starter Pat Kalnins was 2nd in the UCT. Unfortunately, Pat fell in the districts but had a good season.
Will Fernandez and Christian Esposito also wrestled well both making it to the Region 4 tournament before losing in the first round at Union. Max Nock had a tremendous season with a 2nd place finish in the George Bossi Lowell Tournament, overcoming early injuries to salvage a 5th place in the UCT and his pin to win secured a 5th place finish and team victory for the Cougars. He went on to dominate and win District 14 title and finish 3rd in the Region 4 tournament to qualify for the NJSIAA States in AC.
The other story of our season was in the talent of our underclassmen. Talented juniors Luke Digiovanni 138 and Jimmy Gluck 132 along with quickly maturing sophomores Colin Murray 145 and Kevin “Boo” Shriner, and freshman Mason Hooey 113 became major factors in the team’s success. With the adversity came some growing pains, but quick maturation from an experienced youth program gave the Cougars the tools to succeed before hitting the Varsity level. Cranford saw 6 freshman and 4 sophomores all record their first varsity wins. Against top level competition, our team did appear “young.” In comparison, they are. The nucleus of this team is built with many of these underclassmen and our future appears bright.
As a team, 9 wrestlers recorded more than 20 wins and 1 of them had over 30.
Below are our season dual meet final scores, county, district and region results. We had three wrestlers representing us in Atlantic City this season. Colin Murray 145, Max Nock 170 and Evan Kanterman 195. Colin went 1-2, Max went 1-2 losing to in a pre-quarter match to the eventual state champion Connor O’Neill of DePaul in which he still went the distance and Evan went 0-2 losing his first match to the eventual state runner-up Dave Szuba of Brick Memorial. We are all proud of their efforts and how they carried themselves on and off the mats.
Our starting lineup for 2020 included: 106 Will Fernandez, 113 Mason Hooey, 120 Pat Kalnins, 126 Patrick Ganley, 132 Jimmy Gluck, 138 Luke Digiovanni, 145 Colin Murray, 152 Christian Esposito, 160 Shane Kanterman, 170 Max Nock, 182 Justin Alpaugh-Mclean, 195 Evan Kanterman, 220 Dylan Mcdonald, and Hwt Kevin “Boo” Shriner.
Other wrestlers who saw varsity action and wrestled well were Michael Tona, Ronan Waters, Luca Limeira, Gavin Jones, Quentin Connolly, Jake Lies, Conor Hoefling, Chris Hecht, Brendan Reilly, Brennan Quinones, and Sam Derasmo.
2019-2020 Season Schedule
Wall L 34-33
Arthur L Jonson W 77-6
Kearny Tournament – Cranford finished 2nd in the tournament.
George Bossi Lowell Holiday Tournament – Cranford finished 10th in the tournament.
Rahway (Alum Night) W 45-26
Quad – 1
At Brick Memorial L 45-31
Allentown W 47-25
Cedar Grove W 65-12
At Elizabeth W 45-27
Scotch Plains/Fanwood W 43-27 (PAL Night)
Union County Tournament Champions Cranford Cougars
At Linden W 60-24
At Roselle Park W 54-24
Tri – meet
At Middletown Sout W 37-24
Lacey L 50-22
Governor Livingston W 66-6
Plainfield W 72-9
At Westfield L 44-22 UCC Conference Championship
At David Brearley W 72-12
N2 G4 Rd 1 Middletown South
W 40-25
N2 G4 Sec Semi at North Hunterdon
L 46-18
Quad – 2
River Dell W 40-33
Paramus W 53-27
Wayne Valley W 46-25
District 14 at Westfield – District 14 Champions Cranford Cougars
2020 UCT Tournament Results – Cranford Cougars Team Champions
Champion Justin Alpaugh-Mclean 182 and Evan Kanterman 195, 2nd place Pat Kalnins 120, Luke Digiovanni 138, Shane Kanterman 160, Kevin Shriner Hwt, 3rd place Mason Hooey 113, Jimmy Gluck 132, Colin Murray 132, 4th Will Fernandez 106, 5th Patrick Ganley 126, Christian Esposito 152, Max Nock 170.
*Max was injured throughout the tournament and his pin to secure 5th was one of the pivotal moments of the tournament.
2020 District 14 Tournament Results – Cranford Cougars Team Champions
Champion Colin Murray 145, Max Nock 170, Evan Kanterman 195, Kevin Shriner Hwt. 2ndplace Jimmy Gluck 132, Luke Digiovanni 138, Justin Alpaugh-Mclean 182, 3rd Will Fernandez 106, Christian Esposito 152, Shane Kanterman 160.
2020 Region 4 Tournament Results
3rd place NJSIAA State Qualifiers:
Colin Murray 145, Max Nock 170, 4th place Evan Kanterman 195.
5th place non state qualifiers Justin Alpaugh-Mclean 182, Luke Digiovanni 138
2020 NJSIAA States Results
Colin Murray 1-2, Max Nock 1-2, Evan Kanterman 0-2
Final Varsity Records for the 2020 team are:
Michael Tona 1-0
Will Fernandez 21-16
Questin Connolly 7-9
Brendan Reilly 0-2
Mason Hooey 14-8
Ronan Waters 4-2
Patrick Kalnins 16-9
Patrick Ganley 11-18
Lucas Esposito 0-0
Wesley Nicholls 0-0
Tyan Kilbashian 0-0
Jimmy Gluck 28-12
Leo Pacheco 0-0
Benji Mcmahon 0-0
Gavin Jones 1-1
Luke Digiovanni 20-6
Kyle Fargo 0-0
Conor Hoefling 13-7
Francis Murphy 0-0
Angelo Fiorenza 0-0
Miles Horne 0-0
Colin Murray 36-7
Matt Cartagenova 0-0
Christian Esposito 18-15
Chris Hecht 7-10
Anthony Alzate 0-0
Harrison Gilmartin 0-0
Sane Kanterman 25-12
Luca Limeira 0-1
Ian Spurr 0-0
Jake Lies 1-3
Max Nock 26-6
Evan Kanterman 20-4
Brennan Quinones 0-2
Justin Alpaugh-Mclean 29-10
Dylan McDonald 5-15
Sam Derasmo 0-4
Kevin Shriner 23-12
Matthew Catagenova 0-0
