Barnegat Wrestlers Fall to West Deptford in NJSIAA Tournament

Rich Schmaltz wouldn't go away Monday night.

With he and his teammates trailing West Deptford, 31-27, heading into the final bout of the night, Schmaltz was in a brutal position: A decision wasn't going to be enough.

He had to get a major decision just to tie, and a pin to win.

After four minutes of wrestling, it was bleak: In the final period against Scott Dennis, Schmaltz found himself down 7-2, with no clear route to victory. Dennis was in control and didn't look like he would give it up.

But Schmaltz was still fighting—fighting for his team more than anything.

“I went out there saying, 'I have to get this,'” Schmaltz said. “I really just wanted to get the win for my team.”

That spirit is what drove Schmaltz to find the tiniest chink in Dennis' armor and turn the match on its head in the waning moments; a quick escape and a cradle, and suddenly Schmaltz was on top, that pin within his reach.

Dennis wasn't giving up, either, though—he slipped away once, and Schmaltz tried the cradle again, coming inches away from a pin the second time.

And that's when time ran out on Schmaltz and the Bengals' season, as Dennis hung on to get the decision and clinch the first-round South Jersey, Group 2 win for West Deptford.

It was an agonizingly close ending to a match Barnegat had led early on—the Bengals jumped out with three straight decisions to open, and were up 24-12 after a heavyweight win by Matt Frigon.

But this has been a season where no lead against West Deptford has been safe; the Eagles have turned multiple matches around on the strength of their lightweights, and Barnegat coach Kevin Karp knew that reputation well before they walked in the door.

“I knew what to expect from them down low,” Karp said. “I didn't expect the lead to last, I just wanted to hold it off as much as we could.”

They wouldn't be able to hold it off for long.

After the Eagles' Griffin Bonner scored a win at 106—a match Karp called a toss-up—followed by a pin by Tyler Kaminsky over Devin Durante and a major decision by Evan Zuzulock over Zack Massa, that lead was gone.

Joe Mandara temporarily stemmed the tide, scoring a decision over West Deptford's Steve Alt, but Christian Terinoni pinned Rob DiCandia at 132 to set up Schmaltz's final bout against Dennis, where it was too little, too late.

Karp said it was less about Barnegat's struggles against West Deptford's lightweights than it was about about the Bengal's failure to score more in the initial going.

“We had to win some toss-up matches,” he said. “It came down to us winning a little bit more up top and gaining some more bonus points.”

Though the match didn't fall the way Karp would've liked, the Bengals still managed to achieve much this season, and proved they could go at it against a tough team in a tough environment.

“Overall, our goal was to get to the states this year and compete,” Karp said. “We'll just move on from here—we're losing one senior, and returning the rest of the team. We'll just go from there.”