By Alex Frazier
Highlighting…Matt Marks
Known as “River Rat” to his teammates, Harry S Truman’s Matt Marks is proving to be more like a tiger on the mats.
To date, the 130-pounder has yet to lose in six bouts.
“He’s just hard-nosed, hard working, no frills,” said Truman coach Steven Given. “There’s nothing flashy about him. He’s your typical old-school type kid, but he’s our style kid.”
Marks acquired his nickname because of his prowess in the water. What’s a wrestler doing in that foreign substance, you ask?
Given occasionally puts his team through water workouts. Marks always makes the rest of the team look like slugs in the water. While they gas, he’s still growing strong.
“Everybody was puking, dying during the workout, and he’s laughing at everybody, having a ball with it,” said Given. “We never saw a kid do a workout like that.”
“Where did you learn to swim?” his teammates asked him.
“In the Delaware,” he responded.
When he was growing up, he and his brothers often swam in the Delaware River.
“We’d go down there and swim all the time,” he said. “I just got into it and it was fun. They’d throw me in the water all the time and I was scared, but I got used to it after a while.”
Besides swimming, Marks grew up wrestling, thanks to his older brother Bobby.
“He liked it and got me into it,” said Marks. “I looked up to him.”
He started with a Neshaminy midget team and then after volunteering to wash the mats at the middle school in sixth grade, he wrestled for the team for three years before his family moved to Philadelphia, and he transferred to North Catholic.
As a sophomore, he placed seventh in the private school state tournament. But after a year at North Catholic, he moved in with his brother in Bristol Township and started at Truman. He missed five weeks of his junior season, but came back to place fourth in Section One and qualified for districts.
“It really hurt because I wasn’t in any shape at all,” he said.
With a summer of hard work behind him, which included weight lifting, running, practice and tournaments, he’s ready to make his senior year his best so far.
Marks credits his success to the coaching staff as well as partners James Bak, Sean Edmondson, Justin Evens and Shane Marchesani.
“I have good workout partners,” he said. “I give it all to our coaching staff.”
Marks is still undecided about life after high school.
“I have no idea what I want to do with my life,” he said.
For now, his goal is to have a “long post-season.”
Bears rise up – When Stefan Muller started coaching at Upper Moreland four years ago, there were only seven or eight guys out for the team.
“The school district was thinking about cutting the sport,” he said.
Not so fast.
Muller took over as head coach the next year and has grown the program into 28 strong.
Muller gives credit to the youth and middle school coaches, especially Dave Bolich.
“There’s a lot of interaction with the club and the middle school,” Muller noted. “The staff has done a great job coming together.”
He also cited quite an enthusiastic response by his wrestlers in the off-season. They went to tournaments and attended camps.
“The guys are beginning to do year-round wrestling,” said Muller.
And in numbers there is also strength. The Bears have a solid trio to build their team on.
Tim Santry (125), who finished seventh at states, is undefeated at 6-0, and 189-pounder James Nicholson, who has improved greatly as his eighth-place finish at the Super 32 pre-season tournament in North Carolina proved, is 5-0.
“There’s like a 140 guys in the bracket,” said Muller. “It’s one of the top-tier tournaments in the country, better than the Beast of the East because of the numbers and it’s not just a regional thing.”
And Nicholson has only been wrestling since seventh grade.
Sophomore John Bolich is also an up and comer. Last year he went 28-6, 1-2 at sections. He is now 4-1.
All three of them won championships at the Southeast Classic.
“Without those guys we don’t necessarily have that example, that leader,” said Muller. “Even if they’re not vocal, they’re individuals for the younger guys to look at and model after. And on top of that, when these guys go to a tournament they bring two or three other teammates along in the off-season. Not just in the off-season, but also in the room they step the program up to the next level.”
Also, senior Mark Poderis finished fourth at the Southeast Classic and is now 5-2 with an impressive win against Norristown’s regional qualifier Stephen Parker
With Quakertown and Methacton out of the American Conference, the Golden Bears have a shot at taking their first title. Their fourth place finish at the Southeast Classic only attests to how far they have come. They easily finished ahead of 10th place Wissahickon, but just slightly edged newcomer Norristown by two points. Upper Dublin and Plymouth Whitemarsh are also likely to have a say in who wins the conference, which may be the most competitive it has been in a few years.
Upper Moreland is off to a good start with wins over Wissahickon (36-33) and Cheltenham (68-9).
“We’ll be a better tournament team because we do have some studs,” said Muller. “As a dual-meet team, we need to see what the freshmen are going to do for us, especially down low and we need to see what kind of fight the guys up top have. We hope in February we’ll be contending for a league championship.”
Walk the walk – A lot of coaches proclaim what a tough schedule they’ve put together and how much it will help their program. But few can claim the caliber of opponents Council Rock South has lined up in December and early January.
First the Golden Hawks ran up against archrival Council Rock North (29-26 loss). The next night they took on Quakertown (35-29 loss). The Saturday following that they knocked heads with Northampton (44-13 loss) and Nazareth (33-26 win).
Wednesday the Hawks recorded their second dual meet win, first in the National Conference against Neshaminy (49-19) before the Hawks travel to a tournament at Central Mountain High School this weekend.
Following Christmas they wrestle in the Hurricane Holiday Class at Liberty and to start the new year take on Blair and Pleasant Valley at the Easton Duals.
Whoa!
Around the league – No big surprises in Wednesday night’s card of SOL matches. Council Rock South notched its first league win of the season, defeating Neshaminy 49-19. Pennsbury avenged a loss to Bensalem last year with a 52-15 win. And Abington showed its strength with a 43-27 victory over William Tennent.
In the Continental Conference, Central Bucks East gave Quakertown a go for a while before falling 41-21. Central Bucks West showed it might be a team to deal with as the Bucks pinned up Souderton 56-11. Hatboro-Horsham also got back on track with a 60-11 thrashing of North Penn.
In the American Conference, Plymouth Whitemarsh edged Wissahickon 38-36, giving the Trojans two losses in the league.
• Last weekend was another big one for tournaments. Central Bucks East won three matches at the Perkiomen Valley Duals, defeating Methacton 49-16, William Tennent 28-24 and Norristown 33-26. The Patriots’ only loss came to Mt. Union, 39-33.
In the same tournament, Norristown’s Stephen Parker earned his 100th career win with a technical fall over Allentown Dieruff’s Jonathan Jimenez.
• Quakertown finished second in its own dual-meet tournament, losing to nationally ranked No. 8-ranked Wyoming Seminary 49-18. John Collins, however, won all four of his matches.
• Pennridge’s Colin McConnell (152) won the Mule Classic at Solanco High School with two pins and a pair of decisions. Brad Herrmann (160) and Joe Winters (215) finished second, while Greg Warden (189) was sixth and Josh King was seventh at 125.
• Abington and Quakertown both recorded shutouts over the weekend. The Galloping Ghosts blanked Roman Catholic 70-0, and nearly did the same against Bishop Shanahan, losing just one match in a 70-3 whitewash.
Quakertown shut out Hanover Area, 79-0.
• Souderton crowned one champion at the West Chester East Invitational and finished eighth as a team, while Central Bucks South had a pair of runners-up to finish fifth.
Joe Stolfi won the 189-pound weight class, while teammates John Lewis (112) took second and Rob Smothers (215) finished third.
The Titans’ Mike Mathis finished second at 103 and John Sklencar was runner-up at 119.
• Pennsbury went 3-1 at the Spartan Duals, defeating Susquehanna Twp. 46-23. Southern Lehigh 58-9 and Wissahickon 46-7. The Falcons suffered just their second loss of the year to Bethlehem Catholic, 52-19.
• Council Rock South was 1-1 at the Cement Town Duals. The Hawks lost to Northampton 44-13 but rallied for their first win of the year, defeating Nazareth 33-26.
Top Five SOL teams
1. Quakertown
2. Council Rock North
3. Council Rock South
4. Central Bucks East
5. Pennsbury
Top Guns
103-Scott Wolfinger, Quakertown
112-James Bak, Harry S Truman
119-Zac Haynes, Council Rock North
125-Tim Santry, Upper Moreland
130-Luke Wisniewski, Plymouth Whitemarsh
135-Matt Rust, Quakertown
140-Jon Brodzik, Central Bucks East
145-Jim Vollrath, Council Rock South
152-Colin McConnell, Pennridge
160-Ed Shupe, Council Rock South
171-Devon Passman, Central Bucks East
189-James Nicholson, Upper Moreland
215-Dan Clemenson, William Tennent
285-David Osei, Abington
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