Projected Line Up:

Surprisingly, this season to date has only given us one previous head to head. Jayden James, making his season debut at Beast of the East, would ultimately win that tournament with a 5-3 win over Billy Dekraker in the finals. That was a week after Dekraker placed at Ironman. New Jersey season starts later than most so Delbarton – among others – doesn’t get to make that trip to Ohio. That back to back is a gauntlet for the few teams that choose to run it. Could that have factored into the results there? Possibly. Am I predicting the Blair Buccaneer to flip it in his favor today? No. But he could. He definitely could.

So, other than 138, we don’t have any other recent results to go off of, but we do have some possible rematches from last year’s dual. However, as we sit right now, even those we only have two: at 120 and 285. There are plenty of names still in these line ups that were in last year’s dual but many at different weights. It was Perentin vs Ognissanti and Cerchio vs Snyder as examples. Could Blair mix up their line up in a way that we get those again? Sure. But as I usually mention in these dual write ups, it’s rare to see the favorite take an aggressive stance with their line up, rather than the underdog trying to get creative. So I would call each of those unlikely.

The past 2 years, this dual has been supremely close. Last year’s version was about as exciting as it gets, perhaps the best dual I’ve ever been too. Not just with regard to the energy from the Delbarton student section, which seemed to never take a second off from screaming at the top of their lungs, and jumping around like the gym was the new House of Pain, but the wrestling itself. Blair would ultimately win, 26-24, trailing 24-20 heading into 285 and getting the pin by their hammer at the back of the line up, Carter Neves. 

As I say, it doesn’t get better than last year’s dual between these two. And the task ahead of Delbarton appears to be a little more daunting on paper. They lost two mainstays in the line up, Tyler Vazquez and Simon Ruiz, to the Ivy League – both winning key matches in this dual. Blair also lost a pair of top kids in Marc-Anthony McGown and Lorenzo Norman. Truth be told I would say the Ruiz Norman match was the single match of the night. And now both are gone. Side note: Norman made waves in his redshirt season for Stanford beating Shane Griffith. Anyway, back to the lecture at hand.

Both teams lose some elite level wrestlers but the way they line up heading into this it appears to be a bit stronger in Blair’s favor. I’ll run through the weights and then as I like to do, see if there’s a path for Delbarton to take to turn it in their favor.

Right away, you see 10 weights will have at least 1 ranked wrestler, 4 matches look to be nationally ranked showdowns. Now, it’s possible that for Delbarton to have a chance here they have to shift some of their ranked guys around. Meaning we may not actually see all of these. But for now, we’re proceeding as close to the status quo as we can. I also don’t know what weight they’ll start at. With 285 being the biggest favorite of all the weights, if I’m Delbarton I hope it starts there, and that way right away we know what kind of night we’re in for. If Neves gets the fall again, we have our work cut out. If Martin can limit it to a major – or imagine a decision – we have some wiggle room. Alright, enough of that, on to the weights.

106 is one of the 4 possible nationally ranked bouts of this dual, and possibly the single best one of the bunch. You have the 3rd ranked Sontz taking on the 7th ranked Anello. I think I have Anello ranked the highest of all the national outlets but I also think I’m the most accurate, especially in the top 10 across all weights. This should be a great one. Sontz has had a nice season series with Sem’s Shamus Regan, now he gets the other prep 106 stud. Another freshman. Anello picked up a massive win at Ironman over Ignacio Villasenor and that’s the sort of result that gives pause to calling this for Sontz with any sort of strong confidence. I am giving this to the Green Wave in the prediction but I wouldn’t be surprised at all with a huge win for Anello in front of his home crowd.

113 is another match up of freshmen, a pair of very solid wrestlers from the youth circuit. It’s Blair’s Batista who has had the most consistent season, picking up the bigger wins, and earning the national ranking. But you can’t count Terranova out completely. For the Green Wave to pull this upset, they’ll need Terranova to tap back into his win over Brighton Karvoski, turning around some recent fortunes where he’s dropped 2 of his last 4 matches. On the other hand, Batista has a win over Liam Davis who has a win over Terranova. 

120 is a solid nationally ranked match up, except the kid coming in for Blair is their best wrestler who has demonstrated a clear separation between himself and the kids in the top 10 behind him. He has a win over Nate Desmond – who has 2 wins over Jones himself. This is one of the first weights where I could see a shift for Delbarton if they believe DeLuca picks up bonus regardless, maybe Jones is better served up at 126. My guess is that Jones wants the DeLuca challenge and that’s admirable, it’ll take the sort of Herculean effort we didn’t see against Desmond. In last year’s dual, Jones battled to a 5-3 defeat. He could absolutely keep it that close here. I just think the math might work out if he could get bonus for Delbarton at 126.

At 126, we get our first match up without a ranked wrestler but I think the season to date has to favor DeGeorge. However, it’s not a big gap between them. This is the kind of weight in a dual where the home team is often at the advantage and Meier could benefit from that energy. No surprise with either outcome but I’m going with DeGeorge.

132 gives us another Blair wrestler in the national top 5, Matty Lopes, against a very promising New Jersey state contender in Chase Quenalt. I have to favor Lopes in this one, probably something like 6-2. But Quenalt himself is on the cusp of the top 25 and this could be a real coming out party for him, and the sort of flip that a team needs to win a dual like this. I also think this is another where movement could take place. 

138 is a great national rematch from the Beast finals. It was close then and should be close now. Regardless of what either team does with their line up, I see this one happening. That first battle was James first action of the season while Dekraker was coming off Ironman. Does this rematch go even more in James favor, being much more in wrestling shape? Or does it favor Dekraker having a little more rest than the Ironman -> Beast gauntlet? We shall see. I think highly of the Delbarton sophomore, and expect him to come up big again here.

144 is similar to 132. A top 10 kid for Blair, Logan Rozynski, against an unranked opponent, Trevor Jones. The difference from 132 is that this is one of the bigger favorites for Blair. I’ve seen Rozynski come up huge in duals before and something like a fall here would almost be a nail in the coffin. I’m not predicting that. I think Jones handles himself well. It’s just hard to see the path to victory as I sit in my lonely office corner.

Much like 126, 150 is a pair of unranked wrestlers where the match up favors Delbarton. But by how much? Not a lot. And they’ll need to win this, as well as 126, to keep the eye on the prize. Just like with DeGeorge, Logan has to be ready for an electric crowd to energize his opponent. Think he gets it done, but as Lee Corso says, “closer than the experts think.”

157 is a pretty solid Blair favorite. I think all things being equal, you’d expect a comfortable decision verging on a major for Ognissanti. At Delbarton, you would hold out hope for Betz to shock the weightclass. At Blair, I’m probably underselling the Ognissanti win in the prediction table, but I tend to keep all matches to decisions unless there’s overwhelming evidence pointing to something else.

165 might be the match of the evening. A pair of top 10 kids who have spent time as high as #1 in various parts of their career. Henckel is a deserving favorite but this is the match that Delbarton has to have. It’s one of their 3 or 4 best wrestlers, someone they need to get team points from. This is another candidate to see shuffling. For example, moving Perentin up to wrestle Mielnik.

175 is a big Delbarton advantage and if it is Cerchio vs Mielnik, they’ll probably need more than just the simple decision from their senior leader. And he could do it. But Mielnik is very solid and if the coaching staff lets him know the situation, he could definitely stretch this out, making bonus tough. If Perentin is here, that gives us a rematch from last year’s dual with Cerchio against Pete Snyder. Again advantage Delbarton but perhaps a little closer.

190 is a little more of a toss up, but this one favors the Buccaneers. Snyder has just done more in his short career. But he doesn’t done enough to garner solid favorite status. Quandt is solid and perhaps AT Delbarton I’d give him an even better chance to win it for the Green Wave. Instead, I’d say this is one of the targets for Delbarton to possibly shift guys around, like I mentioned Cerchio perhaps.

215 is another unranked toss up where the slight edge goes to Delbarton. Even though there seems to be a consistent theme here – Blair has more of the absolute solid favorites, Delbarton has the advantage in more of the toss ups – the Green Wave can’t slip up in ANY of these. This could be another spot where they move Lee up to 285, thinking he’s less likely to give up the fall and swing 3 points in their favor against Neves.

285 is a rematch from last year where Blair needed a major to get to criteria and anything beyond that win outright. And Neves got the pin. It was a scintillating finish to an outstanding dual. Depending where this one starts, we could get similar here. And I have Neves coming through once again. And the bad thing for Delbarton, big edges at 285 often lead to pins and 6 team points.

So, the way I have this coming into the dual, it’s a little less favorable for Delbarton than the last 2 years. Last year, I predicted it would come down to 285 and that’s what happened. This year I’d be more surprised if it were that close on the team score. 28-18 isn’t some sort of blow out by any means. It’s 8-6 matches with some bonus to Blair. That can be overcome pretty quickly. So, let’s see what one possible iteration of the Delbarton line up could do.

So, of course nothing is guaranteed, and you still have to win matches regardless of how they get shuffled, but if Delbarton inserts last year’s 106 (Palentchar) into the line up, and moves everyone else up one, it gives them more of a chance to pick up 7 weights, that’s a 6 point swing. Then somewhere they pick up bonus. I have it at 126, maybe it’s 190. Then Lee keeps Neves from the fall at 285. And now we’ve made up 10 points and sit at a 22-22 tie. 

It’s also worth mentioning again that Blair has options that could make it even harder for Delbarton to reach the requisite points. But, as mentioned before, the favorite rarely gets that aggressive. 

Just like with the last 2 years, I’m looking forward to this one again. If the line ups come out true to form, we’ll get 4 ranked battles, with a few in the top 10. And on a Thursday night in February, what’s better than that?