It was all smiles and laughter Friday night.
The Absegami High School wresting team, which was ousted from the playoffs on Wednesday night, wrapped up its dual meet season with a 55-15 rout over district rival Oakcrest in Hamilton Township.
"It's our rival and it's good beating them by a lot," said Absegami junior Mike Jiampetti. "It's nice to send our seniors out with a nice win."
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"It's a big match and it's our last dual match," Absegami coach Shawn Scannell said. "It's still a rivalry; it's our sister school and we wanted to come out here and give the seniors something to go out on."
It may have been the last dual meet of the year, but there is still plenty of wrestling to be done. The Braves will start preparing for the upcoming District 32 Tournament.
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Jiampetti's preparation started on Friday night, as he took on Oakcrest's Jovanni Arroyo, who entered the night with one loss, at 119 pounds. The Braves junior scored 4-1 victory, which put the Absegami ahead 21-6, but more importantly for Jiampetti, it will give him a leg up when it comes time to seed the district tournament.
Jiampetti scored a reversal in the second period for a 2-0 lead. Arroyo scored an escape early in the third period, but Jiampetti registered a takedown for the 4-1 lead.
"It was a big win and it affected my seeding for districts," Jiampetti said. "I knew it was a tough match, but I believed in my conditioning and wrestled tough."
Jiampetti's win was one of 10 Braves' victories over the rival Falcon. It may have been the most impressive, but Frank Malloy's win made the team just as excited.
The Braves' 135-pound wrestler recorded his first win of the season, recording a 14-4 major decision.
"It was great to finally get my hand raised," Malloy explained. "With it, all the disappointing losses went away. I'm just happy."
He added: "It's great to go against a rival school in the last match of the season, and the only thing on my mind was to win this last match. I didn't want to go into districts defeated."
The Braves' DeJour Hood started the night off with a pin at 215, and six more Braves won in the same fashion.
Steve Schwartz (heavyweight), Brandon Goldberg (112), Gavin Gugliemli (125), Nate Ross (140), Anthony Tamburelli (145), and Alex Gong won by pin. Chris Hahn (152) won by forfeit.
