Corey Stasenko, who placed sixth in the state at 145 pounds a year ago, has dropped three weight classes.
The South Plainfield senior, who coach Kevin McCann said made sacrifices for the team by wrestling light the three previous years, will compete at 126 pounds this winter.
“What people don’t understand about Corey is he probably weighed about 138 and was wrestling 145,” McCann said.
“This year he was thinking, does he lift to try to get up to 152 or does he make a sacrifice and go down. He made a decision to go down. He thinks that’s where he can do the most damage and go to win a state title.”
Stasenko, who recently signed a National Letter of Intent to wrestle at Rutgers University, raised his career mark to 113-15 by winning 43 of 47 bouts a year ago.
Toy Drive
Spectators who bring a new unwrapped toy for either a boy or girl valued at $5 or more can use the donation as a ticket to enter Bishop Ahr’s opening home dual meet against Old Bridge tonight.
Take down cancer
South Plainfield’s season-opening dual meet against Bergen Catholic on Tuesday is not only a meeting between two of the state’s best teams, but will serve as a fundraiser for and to heighten awareness about prostate cancer.
We’ll have a feature story previewing the event, which the senior class did a wonderful job of planning, in Monday’s edition.
Districts
for Rutgers Prep
As a first-year member of the NJSIAA, Rutgers Prep will be able to compete in the district tournament this season.
Too bad the Argonauts were not an NJSIAA member long ago. It would have been great to se the Epps brothers – Cody, Brett and Kacy – compete in the postseason against the area’s other top wrestlers.
Cody, the youngest of the three, graduated earlier this year.
Video preview show
Watch a replay of our streaming live video previewing the 2012-13 high school wrestling season at http://blogs.mycentraljersey.com/onthemat/.
Veteran sports reporters Patrick Buganski (Daily Journal and The Mat Pack), Steve Falk (Asbury Park Press and Hitting the Mats), Mike Weilamann (Open Mike at mikeopen.blogspot.com/) and Greg Tufaro (Home News Tribune and On the Mat) covered the mats from Sussex to Cape May counties.
With nearly 100 years of combined writing experience, the panel previewed the top wrestlers and teams from Sussex, Morris, Warren, Hunterdon, Somerset, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Cumberland, Gloucester, Camden, Atlantic and Cape May counties.
The experts also answered viewer questions, which were submitted in real time by interacting on a simultaneous live chat.
Region 5 ranking chairman Ron Mazzola hosted the live webcast.
Follow on Twitter
For breaking news and links to every story on high school wrestling, follow Greg Tufaro’s coverage on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MyCJ_Sports
PRESEASON
TOP 10
PRESEASON
TOP 10
1. South Plainfield
2. Franklin
3. East Brunswick
4. Bishop Ahr
5. J.F. Kennedy
6. Perth Amboy
7. Monroe
8. South Brunswick
9. Old Bridge
10. South River
