By Alex Frazier
Highlighting…Zac Bush
Nineteen matches into the season, William Tennent’s Zac Bush is on target to meet his goals. The undefeated 140-pounder set two goals at the beginning of the year—win his 100th match and qualify for states.
The first is on the doorstep as he has just eight more wins to make the lofty plateau. While states is never a guarantee, it is likely that he will achieve that goal as well. Last year he finished second at sections and fourth at districts before going 1-2 at regionals.
He will most likely drop to 135 for the post-season, possibly as early as mid-January when he gets two additional pounds.
Considering he was 29-10 last year, Bush’s fast start is somewhat surprising until you learn of all the hard work he put in during the off-season.
“I went to a lot of tournaments and camps,” he said.
He even wrestled for the SEPA National Team.
Coach Joe Rigous also gets him in good physical shape putting him to work for his pool construction company.
“He gets in shape, and he gets strong by doing concrete work,” said Rigous. “And he makes good money. It works out good.”
Bush has had only two hard matches so far this year, both against Central Bucks East. In the Bill Fretz Duals, he defeated Jarrett Sanders, 4-1, and in the Wetzel Classic, he edged East’s Jon Brodzik, 5-4 on a late takedown. Ironically, Brodzik had taken Bush down twice in the course of the match, but couldn’t do it when it counted most. Bush credited his superior conditioning to the victory.
“Our conditioning is one of the best around,” he said. “I feel like I’m in better shape than any guy I’ve wrestled before, so I knew that would probably get me the win at the end.”
Bush claims his strength to be on top. “I’m decent on my feet,” he said, “but I’m good at scoring points on top. I like tilts and legs.”
“He has a nice tight waist, he rides legs nice and he gets to the side real good,” said Rigous. “He works tilts real well, but actually he’s a good all-around wrestler.”
Bush is one of the team captains.
“He’s a leader,” said Rigous. “He’ll do good at whatever he does because he’s a hard worker. He’ll do good in life too; that’s the main thing.”
Bush started wrestling at the age of eight for Bensalem Youth Wrestling before he moved to Warminster. He also played football through his junior year, but quit this year to focus on wrestling, which he wants to pursue in college. He has applied to York, his current favorite; Shippensburg; East Stroudsburg; and Drexel. He plans to major in business/marketing.
“He could wrestle for a Division One,” said Rigous. “He’s a hard worker. He’s one of the hardest working kids on the team, plus off-season too.”
Cardinals flying high – After a 9-15 season a year ago, Upper Dublin is off to one of its best starts since Dave Jones took the helm 12 years ago.
The Cards have lost just one match so far, in addition to winning the New Hope-Solebury Tournament, and placing third at Ridley and 11th at the Wetzel Classic.
“About five years ago (Hatboro-Horsham coach) Glenn (Kaiser) and I started working on the Hatboro midget program,” said Jones. “We had about 30 Upper Dublin kids in there and we’re starting to see the flow through of quality kids coming up. It makes a lot of difference.”
The Cardinals were dealt a setback when Paul Reilly decided to quit wrestling this year to pursue his running career. Reilly was a two-time district qualifier and a co-captain as a junior.
“He would have been one of the top 10 match winners for the high school,” said Jones. “That was a big blow for us. He was exciting to watch and a solid kid.”
Jones, however, has been able to fill in the gap left by Reilly.
He has a core of five to six solid seniors, including Reilly’s twin brother Pat.
“It was always fun watching the brothers play off each other,” said Jones. “When one of them would get beat up, the other would come back out and hammer the next guy and vice versa.”
Pat Reilly is one of the team captains, along with senior teammates Sean Carson (189) and Paul Choi (152).
Carson racked up 31 wins last season and has just two losses this year.
Choi has wrestled four years. “He’s a solid kid,” said Jones. “He’s a little light for his weight class.”
He also has two notable juniors (Matt Gusick being one) and a promising bunch of freshmen, especially Erik Boyer at 130.
Sophomore Nick DiMuzio (119) is “turning it on.” He placed third at the Wetzel Classic. He won 19 matches last year and qualified for districts.
“We have some depth which is unusual,” said Jones.
The UD coach expects to come away from this weekend’s Delco Duals 12-1 or at worst 11-2.
Then the Cardinals begin their quest for a league title. The American Conference will be a dogfight this year. Upper Moreland presently seems to be the favorite, but Upper Dublin, Norristown and Plymouth Whitemarsh will have something to say about that.
The Cardinals face an improving Wissahickon in the first league match of the new year.
“It’s going to be banging,” said Jones. “It’s going to come up to who wins the matchups. Any of those teams can beat any of the other teams. It depends on who’s in school, who’s sick, who’s well matched up. You never know in wrestling. I think we’ll be extremely competitive if we wrestle solid through the middle and we don’t get stuck in weights where we shouldn’t get stuck and we turn guys over.”
The Cardinals are going to be on the road for a good part of the season since their gym has been torn down for construction of a new school. They now practice at the middle school and will host three matches there. The rest are away.
The future looks even brighter.
“We have another group of kids coming up next year that are even better than the group that came up this year,” said Jones. “Albeit that we’ll lose 10-11 total seniors, we’ll still have a solid group of kids funneling in.”
Condolences – Condolences go out to Abington coach Jeff Franko, whose father died Dec. 27. Franko attended the first day of the Ralph Wetzel Classic at Hatboro-Horsham, but left his team in charge of his assistants on the second day. The Ghosts finished fourth.
“The team works pretty close together,” said Abington heavyweight David Osei after winning the championship at 285. “We usually get the job done.”
Close call – Upper Merion’s Alex Vuotto placed third at the Wetzel Classic on Dec. 30 thanks, in part, to a gutsy call that you won’t see very often. He was wrestling LaSalle’s Nick Burns in the consolation semifinals. Vuotto was up 3-1 in the third when he gave up a takedown to tie it up.
The score remained 3-3 after the first overtime period. Burns chose down in the second period and reversed to go up 5-3. For the third period, instead of going down, Vuotto chose neutral.
It turned out to be the best choice as he took Burns down and clamped on a cradle for two back points and a 7-5 win.
“I took neutral because I thought I could get a shot in,” he explained. “He was holding me down pretty good in the third period so I thought I’d take neutral.
“I didn’t think it would ever end. We were both pretty tired after that match.”
Vuotto then went on to defeat Hatboro-Horsham’s Nick Lynch in the consi finals 10-5 to claim the bronze medal.
“I’m excited I finished out the tournament strong,” he said. “I was hoping to get that win last night against the kid from Malvern.”
He lost to Andrew Giannascoli, 4-1 in the quarterfinals. “My coaches were happy because two weeks ago I lost to the kid, 8-0,” said Vuotto. “It was a good improvement, but I was hoping to get the win.”
Last year he finished fifth, so third is quite an improvement especially considering he has bumped up three weight classes.
“My main goal was first, but the goal I had to absolutely meet was improving from last year,” he said.
Vuotto is now 7-3.
Century Achievers – Congratulations to Central Bucks East’s Jon Brodzik and Quakertown’s Matt Rust, who earned their 100th wins.
It didn’t take long for Brodzik to post his as he pinned Interboro’s Dave Forte in a scant 35 seconds at the Abington Duals. Rust’s came at the Beast of the East, where he placed fifth.
Around the league – Plymouth Whitemarsh’s John Staudenmayer (160) and Neshaminy’s Pat Burns (171) each won championships at the Governor Mifflin Tournament. Staudenmayer majored Hempfield’s Jordan Miller, 14-2, while Burns beat Garden Spot’s Anthony Huber, 4-0.
The Colonials’ Sam Morison was runner-up at 152 and Luke Wisniewski finished third at 130. PW finished seventh as a team.
Neshaminy’s Tom Burke (152) came in second and Colby Lederer (112) was fourth. The Redskins came in ninth.
• Council Rock South’s Jim Vollrath won the 152-pound title at the prestigious Bethlehem Holiday Classic, defeating Pat LaBuz of Hazleton, 3-2. Ed Shupe was second at 160 and Matt Rappo finished fourth at 125. The Golden Hawks came in eighth overall.
While Quakertown had no individual champions, the Panthers did have four who finished fourth to place them fifth overall. Scott Wolfinger (103), Ed Koch (140), Briar Malischewski (145) and Rob Basile (189) all came in fourth.
• Both Wissahickon and Harry S Truman turned in great post-Christmas performances.
Wissahickon was a perfect 5-0 at the Southern Huntingdon Duals. The Trojans blanked Sugar Valley 84-0, edged host Southern Huntingdon 38-33 and defeated Boonsboro (Md.) 61-12, Shade 54-24 and Conemaugh Township 54-16.
Dave Yannes (103), Sam Williams (125), Paul Wisloski (140), Taylor Franko (171), Chris Campbell (189) and Brian Corliss (215) won all five matches.
Harry S Truman went 4-1 to place second at the Delco Duals. The Tigers mauled Strath Haven 69-0, defeated Phoenixville 53-15, ELCO 48-15 and Upper Dublin 42-23 before falling to Sun Valley 32-30.
James Bak (103), Sean Edmondson (119), Matt Marks (130), Justin Evens (9135), Tom Kaufman (145) and Shane Marchesani (160) all went 5-0.
Bensalem placed seventh in the same tournament. Ross Pizzi (112) and Frank Lippincott (130) both went 5-0 for the day, while Joe Tully (103) and Nick Lippincott were 4-1.
• Pennsbury placed seventh at the McDonough Duals, going 2-3. The Falcons defeated Susquehannock 69-11 and North Strafford, 42-29.
• Central Bucks South’s Mike Mathis won the 103-pound championship at the Ridley Christmas Classic, decking Monsignor Bonner’s Thomas Flynn in the finals at the 3:02 mark. Rick Seyboldt (140), Julian Gulbinski (189) and Gary Berg (215) came home with silver medals.
Top Five SOL teams
1. Quakertown
2. Council Rock North
3. Council Rock South
4. Upper Moreland
5. Central Bucks East
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-Zac Bush, William Tennent
145-Stephen Parker, Norristown
152- Jim Vollrath, Council Rock South
160-Ed Shupe, Council Rock South
171-Devon Passman, Central Bucks East
189-Jamie Callender, Council Rock North
215-Dan Clemenson, William Tennent
285-David Osei, Abington
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