NJSIAA Wrestling: Seven From Brick Reach Medal Round

(Photos from the semifinal bouts Saturday evening. 1. Gianni Ghione controls Garrett O’Shea; 2. Alec Donovan fights off a hold by Jason Gaccione; 3. Cliff Ruggiero in control of Max Elling; 4. Nick Rivera tries to complete a takedown of Anthony Porcaro. Credit: Karen Wall)

They made it.

For high school wrestlers in New Jersey, getting to Sunday is the payoff for a whole season of hard work. Getting to Sunday means you’re guaranteed to go home with some sort of medal from the NJSIAA Wrestling Championships.

Seven Brick Township wrestlers competing this weekend have reached that point -- Gianni Ghione, Alec Donovan, Cliff Ruggiero and Nick Rivera from Brick Memorial High School, and Will Scott, Dean Sherry and Kyle Wojtaszek from Brick Township High School. And all of them have the opportunity to finish no worse than third place out of hundreds of wrestlers around the state who began the chase to reach this point.

For the four from Brick Memorial, they are among the 28 wrestlers today have a chance at the ultimate prize: a championship medal in one of the 14 weight classes, after all four won hard-fought semifinal bouts on Saturday evening.

Ghione, competing at 113 pounds, scored a 6-4 decision over Garrett O’Shea of Morris Knolls; Donovan (145) battled Jason Gaccione of High Point, scoring a takedown in the waning seconds for a 3-2 decision; Ruggiero dueled Max Elling of Phillipsburg, winning 5-3, and Rivera was forced to work overtime to beat Anthony Porcaro of Sayreville, escaping in the first tiebreaker period and then controlling Porcaro for 30 seconds in the second tiebreaker to earn the win.

Brick’s trio all have the opportunity to place third, if they win their consolation semifinals this morning.

Wojtaszek has had the most difficult journey in Atlantic City, forced to wrestle his way back to this morning’s round of consolation semifinals at 170 after losing in the prequarterfinals Friday night.

Scott (160) and Sherry (182) fell in very tough semifinal bouts Saturday evening. Scott was pinned by David McFadden of DePaul after battling him for nearly three minutes, while Sherry suffered at 10-2 major decision at the hands of Kevin Mulligan of Bergen Catholic in a bout where Sherry couldn’t get any leverage.