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Sports

Dodger Grapplers Wrest Share of Conference TItle

Carr headlock seals victory in season's final match.

Hanging in the wrestling room are banners celebrating each of the school's conference championships, the most recent from the 2006 season. The Dodgers will have to find room for one more banner after a gutsy 36-34 win over Parsippany High gave them a share of the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference, Independence division, title Monday night in Madison.

The Dodgers kept their fans on the edge of their seats the whole way through as momentum swings back and forth quickly became the norm. With the lead continuously changing hands, neither team could grab control by more than nine points at any time.  

Small wonder, then, that the match came down to the night's final match.

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After Madison's Peter Willis dropped a tough triple-overtime match to Parsippany’s Nick Pizzuto at  152 pounds—giving Parsippany a brief 34-30 lead— the gym erupted when senior captain Ed Carr caught Pete Jones with a first-period headlock, giving Madison the win and a share of its first conference championship in five years.

“It’s poetic justice,” said Dodger head coach Steve Healey, who claimed his second conference title at Madison. “We won a championship on the last bout of the night with Eddie Carr’s headlock. It can’t be any more exciting than that.”

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“He gave [the headlock] to me, I’m just super excited,” said Carr, who added that a trip to Disneyland may be in his future. “We’ve been waiting all season for this. [The win over] Pequannock would have meant nothing if we didn’t win show up here. We kept saying, work hard and end up a champion.”

After Nick Haboj lost the night's opening match at 171 pounds, putting the Dodgers in a 6-0 hole, 189-pound senior Jack Anzul stepped up, recording a first-period fall over Omir Sheera and tying the match at 6-6.

“I feel on top of the world right now,” Anzul said. “This is a huge moment for us, we all wanted this so badly. I think I wanted this more than any other win all four years and winning it feels great.”

Later, trailing 12-6, senior heavyweight Mike Boardman wasted no time getting Madison even as he stopped Jawad Yunis with 12 seconds remaining in the first period.

“It feels pretty good, it’s a big win,” said Boardman, who now has two 2011 titles under his belt. “I haven’t had this feeling since football.”

Madison would lose its next two matches before junior Patsy Davis got the Dodgers back on track with a yet another first-period fall at 119 pounds.

John Costa (125 pounds) would follow up the Davis win by battling to a grueling 4-3 victory, leveling the score at 21-21.

“It’s a great victory, everyone stepped up tonight,” said Davis, who improved his record to an impressive 31-3. There are really no words. I just think a lot of kids stepped up and as a whole we wrestled real well.”

Max Gotsch (135 pounds) and Matt Allen (140) would follow a Madison loss at 130 pounds with back-to-back wins, putting the Dodgers out in front for the first time since early in the match, 30-27, and setting the stage for Carr’s clincher.

“There were still some guys that didn’t do what we expect them to do during the match, but that’s what winning a team championship is all about,” said Healey. “Some other guys pull through and picked up the slack. That’s why it’s a team championship, a team win, and we’re very proud to say that we’re conference champs along with Pequannock and Hanover [Park].”

The match was originally scheduled for early January, but weather and scheduling conflicts lead to a number of postponements. It seems fitting, considering the Dodgers had recently hit a rough patch late in their season, to finally have it happen on the last day of the regular season, with the win being sealed in the night's final match.

“I think it reflected our team very well,” Anzul added. “We went all out and it showed.”

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