Conor Mullan takes third for Wave

By Walter J. O’Neill, Jr.

Saturday morning the 2013-2014 wrestling season got underway for the Green Wave wrestlers as they took part in the Annual Neptune Classic. Head Coach Dan George found himself in a precarious position; he had more wrestlers than coaches.

His junior varsity team was away at a different venue with two coaches. George was at Neptune High School with one assistant coach. The event in Neptune was set-up in two gyms, with three mats in each. At one point during the tournament Long Branch had wrestlers in the back gym with the assistant coach and George had two wrestlers competing at the same time in the main gym. Unfortunately for him there it was on mats one and three, so he had to stand on the opposite side where the coaches normally sit and try to shout to his one wrestler at one end of the gym and coach the wrestler in front of him at the same time.

When the matches were over one of the members of the organizing committee told him he couldn’t do that again. “What do you want me to do? You schedule some of my wrestlers in the back gym so I sent my assistant back there and then you schedule two at the same time in this gym. I’m out of coaches,” said George. They didn’t make the same scheduling mistake the rest of the tournament.

The highest placing Long Branch wrestler was senior Conor Mullan. He competed at 182 pounds. Mullan placed third with a 4-0 win over Noah Kreuttler of West Windsor Plainsboro South.

Long Branch had three wrestlers placing fourth in the tournament. At 120 pounds was Mike Jones, he lost the bronze medal match 4-2 to Paul Piccione of St. John Vianney.

Nick Menkin had a strong run at 152 pounds during the opening round brackets for Long Branch. However, when he faced Matt Best for third place he lost by pin at 2:58.

The last Green Wave wrestler to make the medal round was Joe Jasio at 275 pounds. He suffered a 3-0 loss to El-Khoury from Cranford High School.

It was the first match of the season, and Long Branch had all but two wrestlers make it out of the first round. And many made it into the second round of competition.

George enters his 15 season as head coach and he has an overall record of 303-57, and his team finished 19-6 last year and tied for first place in the Class B North division with Ocean Township High School.

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During the opening round of the Neptune Classic Tommy Flannigan (bottom) of Long Branch High School won his 132 pound bout 5-2 over Brian McGovern of Cranford High School. Last year Flannigan was 19-9 at 126 pounds.