Pennsbury Wrestling

Trentonian With North Hunterdon minus defending state champion Rick Frondorf, Pennsbury is now the clear No. 1 in our area poll. How sick is this? Pennsbury is off to an 11-0 start and has now outscored the opposition by a combined margin of 748-51. Think about that? Pennsbury’s average margin of victory is 68-5. Truth be told, the Falcons have not yet run into any quality opposition. Especially in Florida where it avalanched defending Alabama state champion Hoover by the scores of 56-9 and 76-0. Not only were Pennsbury’s scores in Florida totally dominating, but it was amazing the number of people it pinned in like 10 or so seconds. Whatever, things will be getting tougher this weekend when the Falcons travel to Delone Catholic in central Pennsylvania. Still, one has to wonder if Pennsbury might not have been better off wrestling in the Beast in order to get ready for District 11 champion at the end of the season.

Trentonian You’ve seen all the previews. Now it’s time for The Trentonian to really begin its high school wrestling coverage. The fact the state and area ratings as well as the column are appearing today is significant. At the urging of Camden Catholic coach Gary "The Pinball Wizard’’ Papa, this year’s weekly wrestling package has again been moved. Throughout the year, the best-- and worst-- of New Jersey and area wrestling will appear in The Trentonian on a weekly basis each Tuesday. With that out of the way, it’s time to take a quick look at our two polls and get ready for the start of the New Jersey season Saturday. . . . The Pennsbury Story: The toughest thing during the pre-season was deciding who should be No. 1 in our Area Ratings. There are two very deserving candidates. One is Pennsbury, which is leaving tomorrow to take apart eight turkeys in Florida. One of the teams Pennsbury is wrestling is the defending Alabama state champ. Puh-lease. The people in the deep South are good at some things, like going to the pawn shop to afford church, the muffler shop and the Winn-Dixie on Sundays, but one thing they can’t do is wrestle. Led by the likes of Brian Sellers (44-6, fifth in Pa.) and Joe Bowman (40-11, eighth in Pa.), this is clearly Pennsbury’s premier team since 1992. What’s more, some people are already calling it the best team in Lower Bucks since Council Rock 1978. In one poll, Pennsbury is ranked as high as No. 3 in the state. Another thing that has Pennsbury fans excited is the fact District 1’s Upper Perkiomen recently lost to Easton by only four points. Pennsbury was blasted off the mat in last year’s state dual- match semifinals by Easton, but is ranked ahead of Upper Perk. "There’s been a lot of talk about that, but the bottom line is Easton did win the match,’’ cautioned Pennsbury coach Joe Kiefer. Two more words of caution for Pennsbury fans. Easton wasn’t at full strength and everybody in the Valley expects Northampton to come out of District 11. Whatever, Pennsbury recently earned the nod from Council Rock South coach Brad Silimperi after his team was massacred by the Falcons, 66-6. "They don’t have a weak spot in the lineup,’’ said Silimperi, a guy who should know and a state champ from Nazareth. "They’re legitimate.’’ As is North Hunterdon. Under the able leadership of ex-Phillipsburg great Jason Hawks, the Lions are positively loaded. So who would win between Pennsbury and North Hunterdon? Impossible to say, so all you can do is look for clues over the next two months. In the meantime, Pennsbury sits atop our area poll and the excitement is building. How’s this for support? WBCB (1490 on the AM dial) is going all the way to Florida to air a live broadcast of Pennsbury’s 1 p.m. match on Saturday.

Trentonian Preview By Rick Fortenbaugh Although Lower Bucks County always produces some of the best wrestling in the area, this year our Pennsylvania squads are primed to make an even bigger impact. At the top of the list is Joe Kiefer’s Pennsbury squad. To put it simply, the Falcons are loaded. A state semi-finalist last year in the PIAA Class AAA Duals, Pennsbury returns 22 wrestlers with varsity experience from a team that went 22-1. One poll has Pennsbury ranked as high as third in all of Pennsylvania. Pennsbury Coach: Joe Kiefer Last Year: 22-1, SONL Patriot Division champion, District 1 Dual Match champion and state semifinalist, No. 6 ranking in the area. Lineup: 103-Lee Jay Milas (So.); 112-Chris Strickland (Sr.); 119-Brian Sellers (Sr.); 125-Dan Vagnozzi (Sr.); 130-Bill Trimble (So.); 135-Ben Rees (So.); 140-Joe Zizzo (Sr.); 145-Joe Bowman (Sr.); 152-Chris Ryan (Jr.); 160-Kyle Allen (Sr.), Jeff Spiker (Sr.); 171 Corey Howard (Jr.), Bill Bramwell (Jr.); 189-Pat Frain (Sr.); 215-Joe Bergen (Jr.); Hvy-Tyrus O’Neill (Jr.). Strengths: Where do you start? Sellers set a school record last year with 44 wins in route to a fifth place finish at states. Bowman had 40 victories and was eighth at states. Vagnozzi was fourth at regions and recorded 28 wins. Also piling up the victories last year were Strickland (27), Trimble (25), Rees (23), Allen (23), Frain (29) and Bergen (30). Zizzo (10-7) was injured some last year, but is tough. Milas has beaten out Kyle Palucis, who won nearly 20 bouts last year. Howard is a capable transfer from Bensalem. Ryan missed last year with a knee injury, but can go. There’s tremendous depth all over the place, not to mention all kinds of proven winners. Holes: You find one. Outlook: This is the strongest Pennsbury team since 1992 and it has the potential to even outperform that powerhouse squad. The Falcons have a great shot to again run the table until the state dual-match semifinals where it will most likely run into either Easton or Northampton from the Lehigh Valley. Pennsbury will also be a strong contender for the No. 1 spot in the prestigious 48-team Trentonian Area Ratings along with the likes of North Hunterdon and Hunterdon Central. From a Lower Bucks perspective, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Bucks County Courier Times By Jennifer Wielgus New PIAA wrestling regulations have helped eliminate drastic weight fluctuation and promote a healthy environment. A wrestler’s Thanksgiving, it turns out, is a lot like everyone else’s. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes. All the fixings. But the athlete has one extra thing on his plate, something his jovial family members probably leave on the table. Self control. “You can have a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but you don’t have to eat a pound of turkey,” says Tom Vivacqua, wrestling coach at Council Rock North. “Proportion the stuff,” adds Harry S Truman coach Steve Given. “It’s an easy thing.” Not so easy for most people, and thus, not very common. But a high school wrestler will tell you that just because he says no thanks to a second helping of cranberry sauce doesn’t mean he’s starving himself to cut weight. A wrestler must monitor his food intake on a daily basis during the season in order to fit into his desired weight class at competition. In the past, the extreme measures used by some wrestlers to drop into a lower weight class – and thus gain an advantage over a smaller opponent – have cast a shadow over the sport. But area coaches and wrestlers say the times have changed. They know more about nutrition, and new rules imposed on them by the PIAA and wrestling’s governing bodies have made weight maintenance a much more exact science. It’s very possible, they say, to be a healthy wrestler. “Coach [Joe Kiefer] used to tell us that when he would wrestle in college, he used to see guys in latex suits go into the boiler room and jump rope for a couple of hours,” says Pennsbury senior Pat Frain. “Fortunately, I never had to do that. I maybe had to run a couple of extra miles, cut down on my intake of food, but nothing where I was on my deathbed. I would never risk my health to that extent.” High school wrestlers compete in 14 different weight classes, beginning with 103 pounds and going up to the 275-pound, or heavyweight, division. Wrestlers begin weighing in an hour before the start of a meet, using digital scales that measure to the tenth of a pound. Each wrestler must weight at or below his weight class number, or he cannot compete in that class. A wrestler is designated a certified weight by his doctor prior to the season, and he cannot wrestle below that weight unless he gets recertified. Many coaches monitor their wrestlers’ eating habits every day – sometimes asking the athletes to write down their daily diet – to make sure they’re practicing discipline but also getting enough fuel. So they resent the widespread perception that wrestling is an unhealthy sport because of its strict weight demands. “People will go to a football game, and there will be numerous athletes out there competing who will be walking around with 20 or 30 percent, or even more, body fat,” Kiefer says. “Nobody’s talking about the unhealthiness of that. Yet because we’ve got the wrestlers down to 7 or 8 percent body fat and we ask them to control their weight and eat healthy, people are finding fault with that.” That could change, though, due to increased vigilance by the PIAA over weight issues in wrestling. Wearing rubber sauna suits has been an illegal practice for some time. This year, the organization modified its wrestling regulations for the first time in more than two decades, and two important points highlight the changes. In order to wrestle in a particular weight class during the postseason – say the 130-pound class – wrestlers must weigh in at that weight – in this case, at no more than 130 pounds – in 50 percent of their regular-season matches. Previously, wrestlers could compete in various classes throughout the regular season and then drop into a lower class for the postseason. That presumably allowed for rapid, potentially unhealthy, weight loss tactics. “Maybe now we’ll have more instances of people starting at a particular weight and staying there the entire season,” Kiefer says. “There won’t be as much going up and down weight classes and things of that sort.” The second biggest change is that wrestlers are no longer allowed to leave the weigh-in area after they’ve been officially weighed. In the past, if they missed their weight class by a fraction of a pound, wrestlers used to have until the end of the weigh-in period, about half and hour, to try to lose that last one-tenth of a pound. “They’d go to the bathroom and spit or urinate, or go run in place, jump rope in a bunch of sweats and try to get the weight down,” Frain says. “Now, the wrestlers should be more prepared before the tournament to be at least a half-pound under. You can’t procrastinate until the last minute.” Vivacqua agrees. “That’s going to make us be way more responsible,” he says. “The kids have to make sure they’re not even close [to going over their weight].” Inevitably, wrestlers will still need to shed a few pounds here and there during the season. Experts say there is definitely a right way and a wrong way to do so. Karen Plansinis, a certified sports nutritionist who serves as a consultant and Internet columnist for the Pennsylvania Amateur Wrestling Federation (PAWF), counsels wrestlers to start before the season and lose the pounds gradually, dropping body fat and keeping lean muscle mass. “Like the Special K commercial,” she says. But Plansinis knows the gradual approach is not always possible. “Because wrestlers are mostly kids, adolescents, they don’t think that far ahead,” she says. “So what happens is they get closer and closer to the season, they still want to drop a bunch of weight , and then they’re putting themselves on a 500-to-800-calorie-a-day diets and restricting fluids, and that’s the wrong way.” Plansinis worries about that binge-and-purge cycle and also about the low-carbohydrate diets that recently have become popular. By steering clear of all bread products, she says, wrestlers can deplete their bodies of crucial energy stores. “If you don’t have enough carbohydrates stored in your muscles, you’re going to poop out real fast,” Plansinis says. Frain estimates that a typical wrestler keeps his diet between 1,200 and 1,600 calories each day during the season, as opposed to a “normal” 2,000-calorie diet. Wrestlers try to avoid junk foods such as sodas and candy and fatty foods pizza and french fries. They opt instead for salads, rolled lunchmeat, fruit and lots and lots of water. But it’s not easy to monitor and control the cravings for all those old favorites. “Guys will starve themselves, then go eat a whole pizza after the match,” Frain says. “You need to manage that out over the course of time.” Coaches are optimistic that their guidance, added to the influence of new rules and increased education among wrestlers, will discourage extreme weight cutting practices and thus change the image of their sport for good. “I think that in the sport of wrestling and other sports where weight control becomes an issue, we’re trying to do the right thing,” Kiefer said. “We’re trying to educate people and we’re trying to develop some good habits.” Says Frain: “Maybe the new rules will make the rest of the community find out that maybe it’s not that bad of a sport, maybe I will put my son or daughter into it and see how it goes.” Jennifer Wielgus can be reached at 215-949-4213 or jennifer.wielgus@phillyburbs.com --------------------------------------------- One Wrestler’s Diet Pennsbury’s Pat Frain, a 171-pound senior, goes through this diet on a typical day: Breakfast: “In the morning, I’ll have a glass of water and some fruit – bananas, apples – usually two to three pieces. Then I’ll go through the day with a bottle of water in my hand, sipping that.” Lunch: “I’ll try to have a salad, maybe put a little bit of chicken in it. I try to keep my dressing down, because that’s the fatty part of the salad, so I don’t drown it. They have salads in the cafeteria – small and large – and I try to get the small of course. During practice, you lose a good amount of weight, typically 3 ½ or 4 pounds. I go home and have a lot more water, and I try to eat a sensible dinner, not too big.” Dinner: “Maybe chicken with a side of string beans and maybe a little treat. I like to maybe not have three really big meals a day, but cut it down to five small meals a day to keep my metabolism from going up and down, up and down and keep it generally steady.”

Greg Ferrell Pre-Season Rankings Keys ***(denotes state champ) **(denotes state medalist) *(denotes state qualifier) 103 lbs. #1. Paul Bacci (11)- Conestoga #2. Joe Radicioni (12)- North Penn #3. Andrew Jones (10)- Haverford #4. Peter Ferrara (10)- Central Bucks West #5. Justin Gentile (12)- Neshaminy 112 lbs. #1. Brian Sellers** (12)- Pennsbury #1. Tim Harner** (11)- Norristown #3. Nate Nauroth** (10)- Quakertown #4. Jarrett Hostetter* (10)- Oxford #5. Brandon Clemmer (11)- Upper Perkiomen 119 lbs. #1. Casey Ott* (11)- Octorara #2. Tony Malfaro (11)- Boyertown #3. Mike Moley (10)- Spring-Ford #4. Jerry Balasco (11)- Council Rock South #5. Kyle Hartung (12)- Upper Perkiomen 125 lbs. #1. Nick Nauroth* (12)- Quakertown #2. Ryan Jablonski* (12)- Norristown #3. Darren Kern (11)- Upper Perkiomen #4. Dan Vagnozzi (12)- Pennsbury #5. Matt Rizzo (10)- Harry S. Truman 130 lbs. #1. Clint Collins* (10)- Upper Merion #2. Billy Martin (12)- Avon Grove #3. Mike Mowbray (12)- Upper Darby #4. Zac Knorr (12)- Spring-Ford #5. John Deery (12)- North Penn 135 lbs. #1. Dan Geib* (11)- Souderton #2. Jacob Meyer (12)- Upper Dublin #3. Brian Wambold (11)- Council Rock North #4. Mustafa Flemming (11)- Academy Park #5. Marshal Caler (12)- Cheltenham 140 lbs. #1. Devon Smith* (12)- Upper Perkiomen #2. Nate Cain (12)- Downingtown #3. Brian Rowan (11)- Neshaminy #4. Ken McLaughlin (11)- Plymouth-Whitemarsh #5. Greg Brodzik (11)- Central Bucks East 145 lbs. #1. Ben Young* (12)- Downingtown #2. Joe Bowman** (12)- Pennsbury #3. Bob Ireland* (12)- Neshaminy #4. Chris Tate (12)- Garnet Valley #5. Mike Olds (12)- Harry S. Truman 152 lbs. #1. Zach Brower** (11)- Boyertown #2. Mike Dimotsis* (12)- North Penn #3. Eddie Scholtz* (12)- Wissahickon #4. Jake Rathfon* (12)- Downingtown #5. Pat Warusz (12)- Neshaminy 160 lbs. #1. Zac Fryling*** (12)- North Penn #2. Dave Schreiner* (12)- William Tennent #3. Tim Lair (12)- West Chester Henderson #4. Jon Kokinda (12)- Council Rock North #5. Kevin Kalbach (12)- Downingtown 171 lbs. #1. Josh Weitzel** (12)- Oxford #2. Joe Ammendola* (12)- Wissahickon #3. Brandon Hill* (12)- North Penn #4. Mike Pierson (12)- Upper Perkiomen #5. Nick Ashby (12)- Upper Darby 189 lbs. #1. Pat Heim (12)- Conestoga #2. Jake Engle (11)- Upper Perkiomen #3. Andy Bateman (12)- Owen J. Roberts #4. Pat Frain (12)- Pennsbury #5. Joe Maroney (12)- Bensalem 215 lbs. #1. Adam Parcell* (12)- Interboro #2. Doug Weidner* (11)- Pennridge #3. Ryan Collins (12)- Council Rock North #4. Kyle Chandler (12)- Coatesville #5. Josh Furia (12)- Springfield Delco 275 lbs. #1. Geoff Donahue** (12)- Neshaminy #2. Mike Spaid (11)- Boyertown #3. Pete McCormick (12)- North Penn #4. Shane Seaver (11)- Conestoga #5. Sean Reynolds (12)- Bensalem Team Rankings #1. Pennsbury #2. Upper Perkiomen #3. Downingtown #4. Neshaminy #5. Spring-Ford #6. North Penn #7. Norristown #8. Oxford #9. Conestoga #10. Pennridge