Within the group of top 5 states, New Jersey finishes with 23 ranked wrestlers which is good for 4th most this season.

Leading the way are Delbarton with 6 and St Joe’s Regional with 4. Both schools finished with 4 state champions. Delbarton is missing Dan Jones from the list as he was hurt for the post season. He would have certainly been #7 for the Green Wave.

The best seasons with the Garden State were turned in by a pair of juniors, Anthony Knox and Ryan Burton. Knox was just dominant, beating everyone of note at 120 and 126 throughout the season. Burton stepped big from last year’s 3rd place finish to win the season series with Louie Cerchio 3-0 and trade wins with national #2 Gage Wright.

New Jersey joins Pennsylvania and California as a state with at least one wrestler ranked at every weight class. 144 leads the way with 3 in the top 25. 

As the only wrestler ranked at 190, and being a state champion, Harvey Ludington came in as one of the biggest favorites to win a bracket in the country, and he didn’t disappoint.

Perentin over Chapman and Burton over Cerchio were probably the two best matches of the finals. 

Sonny Amato joined a Delbarton pair as the 3 freshmen champions. Anthony Knox is en route to being a 4-timer next year and then those 3 will be the next group in line for the accomplishment.

The biggest surprise was definitely Tyeler Hagensen upending world champ Paul Kenny for his title run. 

Aside from Dan Jones, Anthony Harris was also out due to injury and would have entered the state tournament in the top 10 for sure.

The biggest risers were Ryan DeGeorge and Sonny Amato. Amato spent the entire year ranked but bouncing around the 18-23 range. DeGeorge began the year just outside the top 25 but was on a steady climb up once he broke through. 

The breakdown by grade is as follows: Senior (7), Junior (10), Sophomore (1), Freshman (5)