New Jersey’s A Division Wrestling: Powerhouse Teams and State Champions Highlight Stacked Conference

Every team in this Shore Conference wrestling division is in SI's Top 25 New Jersey wrestling rankings.

Standout senior Wyatt Stout and Southern are one of the New Jersey powerhouses in a Shore Conference A Division filled with them. / CHRIS LACHALL/USA TODAY NETWORK ATLANTIC GROUP / USA TODAY NETWORK

It's a wrestling division in one conference that is so stacked from top to bottom that it has three of New Jersey's seven defending team champions and four of the 11 returning individual state champions in it.

Ahead of this season, the Shore Conference released realigned divisions, and it created a juggernaut with the new A Division. The five-team division features Southern, St. John Vianney, Rumson-Fair Haven, Brick Memorial and Christian Brothers Academy.

All five of those teams are part of SI's New Jersey Wrestling Top 25 State Rankings. St. John Vianney is the highest at No. 5, followed by Southern at No. 6, CBA at No. 7, Rumson-Fair Haven at No. 10 and Brick Memorial at No. 20.

The thought process behind the new divisions was grouping teams of similar ability together to get competitive matches rather than have one powerhouse loom over a division.

Due to the strength of the Shore Conference, that meant putting the defending NJSIAA Group 5 champion (Southern), Non-Public B champion (St. John Vianney) and Group 2 champion (Rumson-FH) all in the same division. CBA has also become a perennially state-ranked team.

Brick Memorial, which has won nine Group titles in its illustrious history, should be a strong contender for the Group 3 title this season - yet the Mustangs will be the underdog in every divisional match they wrestle.

"Something good will come from it," Brick Memorial head coach Mike Kiley said after a loss to Southern on Dec. 19. "It’s going to be a tough stretch during the season, but I think we’ll be battle-tested come the end of the year. There’s a positive in there. Our goal is to win a Group 3 title and these matches are going to help us. 

"We happen to be the bottom feeder of this division, but that’s the card we were dealt. I don’t have a problem with it."

"We’re wrestling two Catholic schools that are ranked in the country, Brick Memorial is always tough, and Rumson is the defending (Group 2) champs," Southern head coach Dan Roy said after the match.

The division also contains some of the biggest names in the country. St. John Vianney senior Anthony Knox is a three-time state champion and Cornell recruit who is SI's top-ranked 126-pounder in the nation. The Lancers also have welcomed St. Joseph's-Montvale transfer Rocco Dellagatta, who was the state champion at heavyweight last season and is ranked No. 3 in the country by SI.

Brick Memorial senior Harvey Ludington has committed to Iowa and is a two-time state champion ranked No. 1 in the nation at 190 by SI. Rumson-Fair Haven sophomore Sonny Amato is also a defending state champion and currently ranked No. 8 at 150 by SI.

And those are just the returning state champions.

Junior Anthony Mason (106/113), senior Bryce Manera (138), senior Wyatt Stout (157) and senior Hayden Hochstrasser (175) are all returning place-winners for Southern. Stout, a University of Pennsylvania recruit, already has a win this season over last year's 157-pound state runner-up, Camden Catholic's Kage Jones. The Rams also added talented freshman Cade Collins, ranked No. 15 at 106 by SI.

Junior Matt Gould (120), senior Patrick O'Keefe (132) and senior Jake Zaltsman (144) are all returning place-winners for St. John Vianney in addition to Knox and Dellagatta. CBA features sophomores Paul Kenny (126) and Brock Oizerowitz (175) as returning place-winners and has added Kenny's younger brother, freshman Sean Kenny, who is ranked No. 4 in the country at 106 by SI.

The division schedule got underway on Dec. 19, when Southern rolled to a 52-16 win on the road over Brick Memorial, zooming out to a 33-0 lead and winning 11 of 14 bouts. The two were longtime rivals in the old Class A South division in the Shore Conference and now continue it in the new A Division.

The best individual clash came when Mason held off Brick Memorial sophomore Sonny DiMatteo, a state qualifier from a season ago, to win 2-1 on an escape in the final second of the ultimate tie-breaker at 113. Ludington won by pin in the loss, while Manera, Collins and Stout all won by fall for Southern.

"A South had a lot of tradition for a very long time," Roy said after the win. "You’re seeing those teams every year. For the better teams, (the new division is) making a better schedule for them. A South has been a little down the past few years so we’ve suffered with power points because we had to be wrestling those teams anyway.

"It’s good matches for the fans, but I guess when you go down the level of the divisions and the teams who aren’t as good might have a good kid on that team who may never get a good match," he continued. "He used to get good matches when the division was balanced. Now it’s not. I think there’s mixed things with it, but I’m good with it. It ups our level. I don’t have to look as much out of conference to get good competition."

It was the first of assuredly many marquee showdowns that will take place in the A Division this season. These are the other key dates in the division race.

Jan. 8: CBA at Rumson-FH; Southern at St. John Vianney

Jan. 15: Rumson-FH at Brick Memorial; St. John Vianney at CBA

Jan. 22: CBA at Southern; St. John Vianney at Rumson-FH

Jan. 28: Rumson-FH at Southern

Jan. 29: Brick Memorial at CBA

Jan. 31: Brick Memorial at St. John Vianney