Brick Memorial Wrestler Medals Again In Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ -- The Brick Memorial wrestling team had a medal winner again in 2016, as Gianni Ghione finished fourth at 120 pounds at the NJSIAA Individual Wrestling Championships on Sunday.

Ghione was the only one of five wrestlers from Brick Township to reach the medal round this year; last year the township had seven medal winners between the two schools.

Ghione (39-3) pinned his prequarterfinal round opponent, Anthony Croce of Camden Catholic, in 31 seconds on Friday night. But he ran into Luke Raimo of Hanover Park, the eventual state runner-up, in the quarterfinals on Saturday morning and got knocked into the wrestlebacks.

Ghione, however, wrestled his way to the third-place bout by pinning Jordan Robinson of Garfield (5:55) and Joe Casey of Bound Brook (0:49) before scoring a 7-1 decision over Shane Metzler of West Morris Central to reach the third-place bout.

In the third-place bout, Ghione faced Gerald Angelo of Bergen Catholic and battled into overtime, where Angelo came away with a 5-4 victory.

Ghione's teammates, Luke Vescovi (138) and Chris Hayes (220) got to the third round of wrestlebacks -- Vescovi after getting knocked there in the prequarterfinals and Hayes after the quarterfinals) -- before getting eliminated. Nick Rivera of Brick Memorial, the state runner-up at 285 pounds last year, lost in the prequarterfinals Friday night and withdrew from the tournament for personal reasons, according to several media reports.

Dean Helstowski, the lone Brick Dragon who reached Atlantic City, won his first bout at 182 before running into state runner-up Luke Drugac of Morris Knolls, who sent him to the consolation bracket. Helstowski, a junior, was defeated Saturday morning in the first round of wrestlebacks.