Montville Broncos Wrestling Has Back to Back Undefeated Seasons

The Montville Broncos Youth Varsity Team went undefeated for the second straight season winning all of their dual matches. The Broncos are 30-0 over a span of two years. The Varsity team started the season winning the Montville Duals Pool B Championship for the second year in a row, a feat never accomplished in Montville history. The Bronco’s then went into their regular season wrestling in the Tri-County youth wrestling league, one of the toughest leagues in New Jersey and posted a 15-0 record winning the American South Division. The Bronco’s next wrestled rival Mount Olive in the Championship match where the Bronco’s pulled off an exciting 40-31 victory to win the Tri-County American League Championship. “This was truly a TEAM victory” said Bruce Weil (Director/Coach). “We were down 28-8 after nine weight classes and our eight graders came through winning 7 of the next 8 matches.” A few days later, the Bronco’s won the Tri-County League Championship individual/team tournament sending 6 Bronco’s to the finals, walking away with 5 champions (Cameron Sontz, Ibragim Soliev, Brandon Teresa, Alex Garcia and Zach Merlino), the second most individual champions in Montville history. The Broncos also had 11 out of 17 Bronco’s placing top 6 in their respective weight class within the tournament. The Broncos have now won 4 League titles in 10 years and have been tournament champions 7 out of the last 13 years. This is the first time since the 2007/2008 year that the Broncos were League Champions and Tournament Champions in back to back seasons. Eight graders Ibragim Soliev, Brandon Teresa, Alex Garcia, Zach Merlino and Michael Conrad finished 8th, 13th, 16th, 20th and 27th on the Montville all-time career win list.

In addition to having a great team season, the Bronco’s were able to qualify 13 kids from the program for the New Jersey Youth Wrestling State Tournament. This is quite an accomplishment as only 24 elite wrestlers in each weight class throughout the state get the opportunity to go to Trenton and battle it out to be in the Top 8 and stand on the podium. The Bronco’s walked away with eleven place winners including 2 state champions (Alex Garcia and Cameron Sontz). The Broncos also had three state runner ups, one third place finisher and 5 other Broncos who made the podium by finishing in the top 8.

The 2015/2016 wrestling season was led by Bruce Weil, Billy Templeton (Varsity Head Coach) and Ken Kurzer (Varsity Assistant Coach). Coach Weil and Coach Templeton were very pleased with this group of young wrestlers. “These boys did something special this year. Each kid came to practice, worked hard and really gave it their all for the TEAM.” Coach Weil stated this was truly a team effort and the future of Montville wrestling looks promising as the Varsity team had kids varying in ages from 6 to 14 years old.

The Montville Broncos have over 70 wrestlers in the program and field three teams (Youth Varsity A and B and a JV team that wrestles in the North Jersey Silver League). First and second year wrestlers wrestle in the Novice league where they learn the basics of wrestling and get to compete against wrestlers of the same skill level.