The Indians completed another successful dual match at home, this one against Mahwah.

PV strolled to a 59-13 victory, which marked Valley’s 11th consecutive win. The night started at the 132 weight class, where Nolan Shields handedly took care of opponent Sean Weber by a bout score of 20-3. The early lead was extended to 11-0 after Mahwah had nobody to wrestle against James Allmers at 138.

Mahwah’s only points came from the 145, 170, and 113 weight classes, respectively. Matt Surich defeated injury-ridden Matt Beyer by a bout score of 8-6 while Travis Arata defeated Jake Prusha in a major decision. Jake Averna fell to Nick Cowan by pin in the second period. Surich, a county champion last year, was tough competition for Beyer at this stage.

Coach Tom Gallione talked about Beyer’s difficult matchup.

“He beat him last year, but Matt is coming back from an injury,” Gallione said. “Matt has only wrestled three matches since he got hurt. We could have easily moved him up a weight and gotten an easy win but these are the types of matches you want. You learn more and more of these matches every day whether you win or not. He learns a lot about himself when he wrestles the kid next time.”

Gallione also discussed Prusha’s opponent, Travis Arata, who he faced off against in the counties. The dual match was much closer than the counties, and Gallione said that Prusha just made the mistake of getting caught in a headlock.

The Indians captured their 602nd win in the history of the Pascack Valley Wrestling Program. The 600th came in a tri-match against Becton, and the following win came on the same day against Secaucus. Not many wrestling programs have achieved 600 wins, and Gallione recognized how special this accomplishment was.

“It’s a nice accomplishment,” Gallione said. “I told all the kids the other day, they’re part of history. It’s something big, not a lot of schools in the state have 600 plus wins. I know some great wrestling schools that haven’t gotten there and it’s good to be a part of that company.”

Gallione also knows that some of his wrestlers might not think about it much right now, but it will be a nostalgic memory for their adult lives.

“You look at it, you’ll think about it a little bit right now as ‘oh, 600 wins’. When they get older, it means more and more to them seeing that they were a part of that 600th win,” he said.

Notes:

In the County Tournament on December 28th-29th, PV saw the likes of Jake Averna (113) place sixth, Tyler Pizzi (120) place fifth, Robbie Natelli (126) place fifth, Jake Prusha (170) place sixth, and Casey Lewis (182) place third. Tommy Chiellini (160) placed second to be the only PV finalist at Hackensack High School.

This was Chiellini’s first Bergen County Tournament, as he wrestled in a different tournament his freshman year and had to sit out the Counties his sophomore year due to being a transfer student.

“I was really happy with how I did,” Chiellini said. “I thought I wrestled well, I thought I put up a good fight in the finals.”

During the match, Beyer wore an ace bandage around the elbow that sidelined him recently. The bandage gave him extra protection as he works himself back to be at 100%.

Gallione placed a freshman wrestler, Danny Finch, at 106. This marks the fourth time this season that Finch has been put at the 106 weight class for the Varsity roster. Beforehand, PV had left that spot empty. Gallione says that PV can expect to have a wrestler at 106 going forward, between Finch and junior Sean Bresnak.

For this match, Mitchell Sorreta was inserted into the lineup as the heavyweight for PV. The playing time at this spot has been split among Sorreta, Zach Olson, and Anthony Romana, with Olson getting the majority of the reps.
Gallione said that his lineup choices all depend on the wrestler in that weight class from the opposing team. Nothing has been decided on who will take on the responsibility at Districts.