Bound Brook Wrestling

Sean Glasgow-Limestone College

Sean was a State runner-up for Bound Brook and also a good football player. On the mats he won four District titles in his career, a  Region title and placed second in the State of New Jersey. His career record was 109-19 and he was a staggering 38-2 his senior year.

CRUSADERS PUT ON A THREEPEAT PERFORMANCE

The Bound Brook wrestling team faced the start of their season with a lot of talent, but also a few injuries which all led to questions on how this season would go. Adding to that doubt was the coaches opinion that the wrestlers did not train as hard as they could’ve in the off-season and were content to with relying on their talent. In retrospect those were valid concerns as the Crusaders had a season where they did win the Group I State Championship, but were still not able to capture the elusive number one ranking in the State of New Jersey. So although the Crusaders moved up in the National rankings to the 20^th ranked team in the Country, there are still some mountains to climb.

The 2013-14 season started with the Crusaders participating in the Neptune Classic for the first time with what became a squad of half the eventual starters on the team. Josh Ugalde and Nick Limenza each one their respective weight classes, while wrestling up a weight and Mekhi Lewis put everyone on notice he arrived in high school with a second place finish. The team took what was considered a disappointing third place finish.

After the team’s first dual meet win the team entered the Bethlehem Classic at Liberty High School in Pennsylvania. This tournament is a excellent tournament with a most un-excellent seeding system and when noted on the team’s website, the fine gentlemen who run this tournament got very upset.  In the team’s final appearance at this tournament they did not look their best and were missing three very good wrestlers for the competition. This meant that the only Champion was Craig Delacruz and Josh Ugalde placed second. Ryan Doerr and Nick Accetta had good tournaments placing third and fourth respectively. The team also placed fourth out of twenty-seven teams.

The Crusaders health did not get better facing their biggest test of the season as they started the New Year off with a journey to the Clash National Wrestling Duals, as they would compete missing four of their eventual starters. But the team did not let this them from giving there best and all seemed well on the first day when they seemed to be rolling to a bracket division championship. But some  bad final matches against Hastings High School spoiled a spot of wrestling where the coaches saw some real gutty performances and the team fell by a 33-26 score.

Day two of the Clash saw the Crusaders competing against the other bracket runner-ups and all three matches were lost to Bettendorf, Iowa 37-35, St. Peters Prep, New Jersey 35-28 and Marist, Illinois 46-21. The team finished eighth out of thirty two teams which was excellent, but considering the line-up they brought, not bad.

After a adventure of a plane ride where Sun Country Airlines thinks it’s okay to land in Boston, Massachusetts when your flying to New York and tell people to get on a bus home, the Crusaders beat Manville and then won their third consecutive Somerset County Wrestling Tournament with a record setting eight Champions. Craig Delacruz won his third title while other winners included two wrestlers seeing their first action of the season Stephan Glasgow and Mike Johnson. Josh Ugalde and Ronald Picado won their second titles, while Pity Limenza, Nick Accetta and Andrew Gombas won their first titles.

It was the second week of January and the Crusaders were finally starting their New Jersey dual meet schedule and it did so with a bang as they defeated the second ranked team in New Jersey Don Bosco Prep by a 36-19 score. This win set up a match with Bergen Catholic a week later to determine who is the best team in New Jersey. But despite a strong start by the Brook, the Bergen upper weights dominated the Crusaders and prevailed by a

Throw in some more dual meet victories and the team then had their biggest showdown of the season as they faced their biggest dual meet test of the season against the 1st ranked Bergen Catholic wrestling team and although the Crusaders had a excellent start to the dual meet still fell to the State's top ranked team.

Redemption was not too far off though as the Crusaders traveled to St. Peters Prep on the day before the Superbowl and had they own version of a fantastic finish.  The Crusaders were down 30-27 with two matches to go and St. Peters had two State placewinners yet to wrestle. No worries, as Aaron Saavedra who defeated St. Peters Prep State placewinner Jordan Fox and then Mike Johnson got his season on track with a win over Armond Cox. What a match and the Crusaders avenged their loss at the Clash by a 33-30 score.

The Crusaders then faced their toughest task of the season as they traveled to Blair Academy to wrestle the number one team in the United States. And although the team lost by  37-22 score, they gave Blair one of their closest matches of the year and six Crusaders scored wins against the mighty Blair Bucs.

The team then started their pursuit of their third consecutive Group I State title with Sectional wrestling tournament. The team breezed through their Section defeating  Manville 69-3 in the semis and Point Pleasant Beach by 69-0 in the finals. This put the Crusaders back in Toms River for the Group I State Championships and the team started with a 49-12 victory over Kittattinny. Then they defeated Paulsboro in the Group I finals by 49-16 to score their third consecutive State Championship. A threepeat! 

The team moved on to the District 18 tournament at Hillsborough High School where they hoped to beat their point record of 275 points from the year before and boy did they... The team scored a whopping 300.5 points and had an amazing eleven Champions as Nick Limenza, Stephan Glasgow, Craig Delacruz, Mekhi Lewis, Nick Accetta, Sean Glasgow, Andrew Gombas, Josh Ugalde, Isaiah Soto, Ronald Picado and Mike Johnson all won titles. Ryan Doerr placed 2nd and Aaron Saavedra 3rd, which meant 13 Crusaders moved on to Region 5.

At Region 5 the Crusaders were named the top team in the Region  for the third consecutive year and then tore through that tournament, as they did District 18. A staggering nine Crusaders made the finals with Nick Limenza, Mekhi Lewis, Isaiah Soto and Mike Johnson winning titles. Runner-ups were Nick Accetta, Sean Glasgow, Josh Ugalde, Ronald Picado and Craig Delacruz. Meanwhile Ryan Doerr and Aaron Saavedra placed third which meant the Crusaders were bringing eleven kids to States.   

At A.C., maybe Craig Delacruz was second at Region, but he was the one who regigned supreme as he won his second consecutive State Championship over Don Bosco's Kyle Bierdumpfel with an amazing low single while down 2-1 with what seemed no time on the clock in the third overtime period. Amazing. Josh Ugalde also joined Craig in the Finals after a great semi-final against Christian Stackhouse but lost to East Brunswick's Jon Scheyfer. Two other Crusaders meant the Crusaders tied the school record with most State place-winners at Mike Johnson took fourth at 285 and freshman Mekhi Lewis placed seventh at 138.

In the end the Crusaders will lose an amazingly talented group of Seniors as Nick Limenza, Isaiah Soto, Ryan Doerr, Ronald Picado and Mike Johnson gave the team a lot of wins in their careers and their contributions will be truly missed.

2013-14 INDIVIDUAL FINAL SEASON STATISTICS

2014-15 MATCH RESULTS