Wrestling Recap: Chatham's Fricke and Furbish Advance to Regions

MILLBURN — Two Chatham wrestlers advanced to this week's regional championships over the weekend after the team sent eight wrestlers to compete in the District 10 quarterfinals at Millburn High School.

The districts are the first step in the journey that all New Jersey high school wrestlers seek—a chance to compete in Atlantic City for the state tournament. The top three wrestlers in each weight class from the 32 N.J. districts advance to one of the eight regional tournaments. From there, the wrestlers must again place in the top three at the regional tournament for a chance to go to Atlantic City.  

Three Chatham wrestlers—sophomore 112-pounder David Lappin, senior 160-pounder Jeff Fricke and senior 215-pounder Jeff Furbish—advanced into the District 10 semifinals. All three recorded first period pins on Friday night, and Furbish recorded his pin in 14 seconds. Seventh-seeded Cougar David Rosenbloom came in as the No. 7 seed and barely lost, 8-6, to a No. 2 seed. Chatham's James Salinardi, Kieran Brennan, Greg DeLade and Justin Engel all came away empty-handed but wrestled extremely well in defeat.

Saturday's District 10 quarterfinals allowed Chatham wrestling fans to taste both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Lappin fell short of the regions, losing an extremely tight 3rd/4th match to Barringer's Ricky Lopez. He lost in the final seconds after leading the entire match. Lappin finished his sophomore year with a 14-14 record.

Furbish ran into a tough opponent from Roselle Park—Frank Yuro—and was defeated 7-3 in the finals, taking second overall. He will now advance and move onto Tuesday night in the elimination round of the regional tournament in Union.

Fricke had one of the most exciting matches of the day against Roselle Park's Dennis Carroll, who was last year's regional runner-up. With Fricke holding onto a 5-3 lead late in the match, Carroll seemed to be escaping to make it a one-point match when Fricke caught him for a pin to end the contest. The win gave Fricke his first district championship, and Carroll had his first ever loss by pin in his high school career.

Fricke was also voted by the head coaches as the outstanding wrestler of the tournament for his dramatic victory in the finals.

He advanced to the regional tournament in Union next Friday night as his win on Saturday earned him a bye for the first round on Tuesday.