Absegami Bounced from Wrestling Playoffs by Cherokee

With every pin allowed, the Absegami High School wrestling team's hopes of reaching the Group IV South finals were slowly being dashed Wednesday night.

Cherokee, the No. 2 seed, won eight weight classes, including six by pin, to defeat the No. 3 Braves, 45-23, in the semifinals in Marlton.

The Braves needed to stay off their backs for any chance of advancing, and too often they were looking up at the gymnasium lights.

"You read the box scores and get the best matchups as you can. I'm proud of the guys that they fought this far, but obviously I'm disappointed with the effort tonight," Absegami coach Shawn Scannell said. "We had it set up where we could have won. We could have won. You can't give up (six) pins and expect to win a match, ever.  You can't expect to win a match with seven losses, seven decisions, let alone seven six-pointers."

"We came in expecting to win," Absegami 171-pound wrestler Alex Gong said. "We were pumped up coming off our last match and I guess we got smacked in the mouth. I guess they out toughed us."

The night started out in the Braves' favor as Mike Jiampetti recorded a pin in 23 seconds to give the Braves a 6-0 lead.

Absegami's Gavin Gugliemli followed with a 6-4 decision over D.J. Mele at 125 in what was a match that could have gone either way.

Absegami's chances of winning the overall match were to be victorious in those types of matches.

"That was a toss-up match and he fought and won," Scannell said.

Unfortunately the rest of the "toss-up" matches didn't go their way.

Cherokee answered with two pins at 130 and 135 to take a 12-9 lead. The second pin came in a match where the Braves were ahead on the scoreboard.

Nate Ross temporarily slowed down the Chiefs' momentum with a convincing 16-7 major decision at 140 to give the Braves a one-point lead, their last of the night.

Cherokee won the next three weight classes, and five of the next six. The only Braves' win in that span came on Gong's 7-5 overtime win at 171. It was the second consecutive match he won in extra time.

Despite the result, Gong was disappointed he needed extra time, and didn't get bonus points.

"I was a little overconfident, and I guess I got smacked too," he said.

Absegami heavyweight Jim Schwartz won a 7-2 decision, and Brandon Goldberg won an 11-1 major decision at 112.

"We are going to take this and move forward," Scannell said. "We have a relatively young team. We have a lot of juniors that will be back. We have to grow and build on this. I'm not happy with this at all. This is a tough loss."