By Alex Frazier
Highlighting…Julian Gulbinski
Central Bucks South’s Julian Gulbinski is a coach’s dream.
Coach’s love to stress pinning; after all, that’s the objective in wrestling, but too often wrestlers are just satisfied with pulling out a win.
Not Gulbinski.
In 10 matches this year, the Titan 189-pounder has decked eight opponents, majored one and lost one.
For coach Craig Deacon, he is the ultimate role model.
“He’s in that (pinning) mode now,” he said. “He’s looking to get kids to their backs, which is good for the young kids because you’re always preaching, ‘You’re here to wrestle for pins not to squeak by if you can help it.’”
Gulbinski is good on his feet and looks for falls off of his takedowns.
“I ended up using a variation on a headlock,” he explained. “I caught a bunch of the kids but then in my last match I used an arm bar. I like to finish them quick. If it was up to me, I’d try to get as much back exposure as possible, but a win is a win, I’ll take it any way, but I prefer a pin.”
Gulbinski, however, thinks he’s strongest on the mat.
“I prefer to stay on the mat,” he said. “My ideal match is one minute standing, five minutes top and bottom. I like riding top. Bottom is fun too. I think I have some pretty good bottom work. Standing is one of my weaker points, and I try to work on that.”
“He’s very aggressive and he’s always trying to set something up to score points,” said Deacon.
Last year Gulbinski started the season at 2-2 before he dislocated his shoulder in the finals at the West Chester East Tournament on Dec. 8.
He came back at the end of January and went 2-1 before he dislocated it again in his first match at sections. He continued wrestling anyway, but lost both matches.
“I couldn’t call it quits then, so I kept wrestling through the tournament,” he said. “It’s tough wrestling with one arm.”
In February he had surgery to repair the shoulder, which he said is stronger than ever.
“I’d say it was my stronger shoulder,” he said. “I’m not favoring it as much as I used to. I got through football with it, so I’d say it’s back up to being normal, except it’s got nice scars on it.”
Ironically, it was his second dislocation. In ninth grade he separated his left shoulder halfway through the season and was done for that year.
“I guess you could call me injury prone,” he said.
And he still feels the effects of it.
“It slides around a little,” he said. “My shoulder strength isn’t as good as it should be, but other than that, I just try to wrestle the way I’ve been wrestling since I was little.”
Gulbinski is captain of the team this year. He has been instrumental in helping the inexperienced upper weights.
“He is a good team leader,” said Deacon. “He takes the initiative to do things without being asked. He’s been with me the last two years, so he knows what I expect, and he tries to get it that way.”
Gulbinski credits his workouts partners Gary Berg (215) and Vince Braccia (171) as well as assistant coach Tristan Boyd for getting him in fighting shape and honing his technique.
He started wrestling in fourth grade for the Central Bucks Raiders.
“It’s been fun, he said. “It’s my favorite sport. It’s definitely a good experience.”
He also played defensive tackle/end for the South football team.
Gulbinski is hoping the coming post-season will be better than last year. He is planning to drop to 171, which should help his chances.
Next year, Gulbinski wants to continue wrestling in college. He carries a 3.9 GPA at South and is applying to an impressive list of colleges, including Princeton, Georgetown (which doesn’t have a wrestling team), Northeastern, American, Boston College, Lafayette and Penn.
“I would like to wrestle in college,” he said. “Anywhere I can do it would be fine.”
April 1st is circled on his calendar. Ironically, it’s also April Fool’s Day.
“Hopefully it goes well,” he said.
“He’s a good kid, very polite and very coachable,” said Deacon. “He’s no problem and that’s great.”
Falcons learning to fly – Coach Joe Kiefer was looking forward to this wrestling season. He had senior Ed Shupe, who finished sixth in the state last year, as well as junior two-time state qualifier Josh Dziewa as his headliners. There were also several wrestlers who were injured last year that he expected would make significant contributions.
“During the off-season, we expected to be very, very good,” said Kiefer. “That was before the transfers and we had three or four kids fairly seriously injured last year and we thought they’d all be back. With that we’d have seven or eight top-notch kids in the starting lineup.”
All that hope was flushed down the drain when Shupe and Dziewa transferred to Council Rock South, and several other injuries decimated the lineup.
“Then it became the big question mark,” said Kiefer. “How would the kids that had to step into those varsity roles react?”
The Falcons should be renamed the Phoenix, as they are rising from the ashes to be a pretty tough, if not yet consistent, squad.
The brouhaha of the transfers hasn’t taken the toll it could have on morale.
“It wasn’t talked about very much at all,” said Kiefer. “We pretty much handled it as business as usual and that’s the way it’s been. Very few questions and very little concern about it. Our attitude as usual is you coach the kids that come out for the team. We always keep our doors open, and we always encourage any young person in our high school that wants to be part of the wrestling program we welcome them.”
Heading into Christmas break, the Falcons are 12-4 overall and 1-0 in the National Conference.
One reason for that is the return of Matt Johnson, who left the program for a year to attend Valley Forge Military Academy.
Johnson is a senior co-captain and currently undefeated at 16-0.
But the Falcons are still a young team with only three to five seniors in the starting lineup. Nearly half the team, six, is new to varsity competition.
Pennsbury’s seniors include: Johnson (171), Pat Hyland (119), Matt Funk (125), Brian Kahil (130/135) and Mark Nicholson (145). Sophomore Conlan Cornman (160) is also looking promising.
Pennsbury’s first two losses came to District Three Cedar Cliff (38-24) in their won dual meet tournament, and to Bethlehem Catholic (52-19) in the Southern Lehigh Duals.
Last weekend, the Abington duals did not go as well as Kiefer hoped.
The Falcons lost their first two matches to Upper Darby and Upper Moreland, but rallied to win the next three over Interboro, Aberdeen (Md.) and Wissahickon.
But most unfortunately the Falcons have lost another wrestler for an indeterminate time.
Sophomore 103-pounder Kyle Martinowich collapsed during his bout against Wissahickon and was carried off on a stretcher.
“He’s OK,” said Kiefer. “He does have a slight concussion, a black eye and a broken finger, which are all mild. But the combination of those was a little serious and it was a little scary at the end of the evening. He wasn’t doing real well on the mat, but once they got him to the hospital and gave him the intravenous, he came out of it pretty well. He was home early in the evening and back in school today (Monday).”
Kiefer still doesn’t know how long he will be out of the lineup.
“It’s day to day,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Like any young team, Pennsbury may be up an down until its inexperienced wrestlers gain mat time, which Saturday’s performance at Abington underlined.
“Overall I haven’t been too disappointed,” said Kiefer, “but I was very disappointed in our performance Saturday morning. We didn’t wrestle to our abilities in those first two meets, but that’s not to take anything away from Upper Darby or Upper Moreland because they both came to wrestle.”
The Falcons will face a big challenge this weekend at the McDonough (Md.) Duals.
“Last year that’s where we did get several kids injured,” said Kiefer. “It will be a very physical day.”
The Falcons have wrestled just one National Conference match, defeating Bensalem 52-15. They will be back in action on Jan. 7 when they host Abington. Kiefer is expecting a competitive league.
“Our league is going to be tight overall,” he said. “Every indication is that it’s going to be a close race. Somebody may just step up and start taking control. You have to stay healthy and everybody has to make weight. Any team that runs into a problem with injuries or weight problems is going to struggle.”
“Throughout the year we’ll keep improving,” said Johnson. “We have a lot of potential.”
Around the league – Of note last Thursday, Harry S Truman gave Council Rock North everything it could handle before falling 32-30. The matches split evenly at seven apiece, with the result coming on bonus points. Truman had three pins to Rock North’s two, but the Indians had five major decisions, which proved the difference.
• Last weekend brought another round of tournaments. Pennridge’s Colin McConnell finished sixth at the prestigious Beast of the East.
• Abington kicked off its inaugural duals, going 4-1. The Ghosts’ only loss came to winner Blue Mountain. Central Bucks East also lost only to Blue Mountain, 48-30. The Patriots’ Joe Mannino (152), Andrew Foltyn (160) and Devon Passman (172) pinned and East collected a pair of forfeits. Upper Moreland and William Tennent both went 3-2. The Golden Bears’ Tim Santry lost his first match of the year to Blue Mountain’s Tyler Rauenzahn (ranked fifth in the state), who took him down four times in an 8-2 decision. The Panthers’ Zach Bush won all five bouts he wrestled at 140.
• Council Rock South finished eighth in the King of the Mountain Tournament. Jim Vollrath won the 152-pound championship, Ed Shupe finished second at 160 and Bobby Lavelle placed third at 189. Hatboro-Horsham placed 21st in the same tournament behind the seventh place finish of heavyweight Alex Myers.
• Central Bucks South finished second at the Ridley Duals, losing to the hosts, 40-38. The Titans’ Julian Gulbinski pinned all five opponents he faced.
• Ted Conrad led Central Bucks West with three falls at the LaSalle Duals. As a team the Bucks went 3-1.
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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