Madison High School Wrestling Loses Heartbreaker to Parsippany

Somebody's got to win.

That statement has never been truer than at Wednesday nights battle between the Madison Dodgers wrestling team and Parsippany High School, a match that showed a 36-36 score after the final whistle.

The match didn't look like it was going to be close when it started, as Madison quickly jumped out to a 24-6 lead behind pins from Ed Carr (171), Jack Anzul (189), Thomas Tracy (215) and heavyweight Michael Boardman.

After a forfeit by Madison at 103-pounds, sophomore Patsy Davis chipped in with a third period pin over Parsippany's David Salinas. The pin gave Madison a 30-12 advantage.

That's where the match took a turn for the worse for Dodgers fans, as Parsippany rattled off five straight wins, three of which came via pins.

At 145-pounds, senior Ryan Colwell battled Anthony Mariano, in a match that wrestling fans were anxious to see. And the two seniors didn't disappoint, as Colwell remained perfect on the year with a 3-1 victory. The win brought Madison within three points of Parsippany, 36-33.

In the final match of the night, 152-pounder Christian Mazzocchi won a 5-2 decision over Nick Kromka. This was another match that did not disappoint and with the win, the scoreboard read 36-36.

Since wrestling matches can't end in ties, the officials were forced to base a winner off of criteria. This is where things got a little confusing.

The first piece of criteria that officials look at to determine a winner is number of six-point wins for each team (i.e. pins, disqualifications or forfeits).  Madison had five, as did Parsippany.

Up next, the officials looked at first point scores in each match. Madison had 11 and Parsippany had 12. And just like that, Madison went home with the tough loss.

"I knew coming in that it was going to be a good match. I thought we were in position to pull it out after we pinned to start the match at 171, 189, 215 and heavyweight, and then Davis helped us out with a pin at 112," said head coach Steve Healey. "We needed one more win somewhere along the way before we got to Mazzocchi and Colwell at the end, but obviously we didn't get one … and we ended up tying the match and losing on first points."

"Our kids wrestled well, they wrestled hard and it's great experience. Unfortunately, we didn't come out a winner but there were some great individual efforts and we were that close and we need to work that much harder to make sure that next time we come out a winner," Healey added.

Up next for the Dodgers is a home match against Parsippany Hills High School at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 8.