Ocean City Wrestlers Give Buena a Scare on the Mat

The Ocean City High School team was ready to wrestle on Tuesday night.

All it needed was Buena Regional, which was more than an hour late, to arrive at the Dixie Howell gymnasium.

Once the match started, it was apparent that the Red Raiders were not just content in wrapping up the dual-meet season by going through the motions.

Ocean City arguably had one of its best performances of the season, but came up short against Buena, which made it to the Group II South finals.

The Chiefs won the final bout to take a 41-33 win.

"We knew it was going to be a hard match, and we didn't let their record influence our thinking on what the outcome would be," Red Raiders' 215-pounder Lucas Pearson said. "We had our heads on straight. We were pumped up and ready to go.  We knew if we came out here and wrestled hard it was going to be a close match. That's what happened. I can't be mad at the result. We wrestled amazingly, and I'm proud of these guys."

"I just think our team is unique in that they don't care who they are wrestling,"  Ocean City assistant coach Angelo DiBartolo said. "Some of these guys are in their first or second year, and stats don't matter. They don't know Buena from everyone else, and they just wrestle hard every match. You saw that here. They fell a little short, but I'm proud of them."

The Red Raiders let the Chiefs know early that they were in for a battle.

Ocean City's Dan Pettit (145 pounds) and Cooper Gallagher (152) won decisions for a 6-0 lead. After Anthony DeSantis (160) won by forfeit. Teammate Jake Terry (171) pinned Sergio Cortes in 2 minutes, 32 seconds to give the home team an 18-0 lead.

"We did the best we could, and we had some matches that didn't go our way, and we had some matches that did go our way," Terry said. "I was happy about my match. I didn't know which way it was going to go. I did my best and went out there with intensity. Everybody was fired up."

The Chiefs answered with a pin at 189 pounds to make it an 18-6 score, but Pearson put the Red Raiders back up 18 with a pin against Noah Repko in 2:44 at 215.

Buena tied the score with pins at 103 and 112, but Austin Stroh won a wild match over John Renner at 119, winning a 17-10 decision, to give the Red Raiders a 27-24 advantage.

Ocean City sent out undefeated Coley O'Brien out at 125, but Buena decided to forfeit the bout to give the Red Raiders the nine-point lead.

However, that was the last points Ocean City managed, as Buena closed out the match with three wins.

Bill Ward, who bumped up to 130, and Dillon Berghof (135) registered pins for a 36-33 Buena lead.

The Chiefs' Justin Pierotti closed out the match with a 19-2 technical fall in 5:27. 

"Being that this match was against a really good team we wanted to wrestle as hard as we could," O'Brien said. "We tried and prepared for a couple of days. We really wanted to win this match. Buena has a great team and they have a great coach."

Ocean City will compete in the District 32 Wrestling Tournament at Absegami High School on Friday and Saturday. The top three wrestlers in each weight class advances to the Region 8 Tournament.