St. Joseph Regional Shocks Delbarton to Capture New Jersey State Wrestling Title

Green Knights complete incredible comeback season, defeat rival Delbarton in epic Non-Public A State Final

Wrestlers and coaches react to a victory on the mat during St. Joseph Regional's 30-26 upset victory over Delbarton in the 2025 Non-Public A New Jersey State Championship Match. / SJR Wrestling Instagram

Wrestling people like to say in defense of a poor start to the year or a questionable loss along the journey that it is how you finish that matters most. If there was ever a more shining example of this than the 2024-2025 St. Joseph Regional team it would be surprising.

SJR now stands on top of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Non-Public A heap after knocking off fellow national power Delbarton, 30-26, in Sunday's state championship match at Rutgers University.

A look at most outlets’ December rankings, including ours, would have shown the Green Knights to be a top five team and in some cases like ours, higher as we had them slated as the nation’s No. 3 team with rival Delbarton at No. 6.

As the teams took to the mats, though, the expectations did not jive with reality for St. Joe. Their high-profile transfers were not eligible in the early going and on top of that the injury bug decided to visit them. The initial showing at the Beast of the East ended with a sixth-place finish, which didn’t damage their national standing at the time.

That finish coupled with more disappointing outcomes eventually forced St. Joseph Regional down in our weekly rankings. They weren’t in the top ten at PowerAde when the final standings were counted. At early January’s Catholic School Duals, the Knights were upended by No. 31 Christian Brothers Academy and No. 33 Bergen Catholic.

Delbarton on the other hand moved to No. 5 in our team poll and was enjoying success after success starting with a runner-up finish at the National Hall of Fame Duals to No. 2 Bishop McCort (PA). The Green Wave was third at PowerAde, behind McCort and No. 4 Lake Highland Prep of Florida.

The only real blemish Delbarton was dealt that hurt their stock a little was a dual meet loss to No. 11 St. Edward, Ohio while missing Trevor Jones from the lineup. The Green Wave even beat fellow Jersey power, No. 9 Blair Academy for the first time.

Just over a week after the Catholic School Duals, St. Joe avenged the loss to Bergen Catholic, which was the first sign of things turning around for them. A healthier but still not at full power squad landed in third place at Escape the Rock further signifying they were on the upswing.

Last Tuesday, February 11th, marked the beginning matches of the New Jersey Non-Public, Group A State Dual meet tournament. Delbarton’s previous deeds aided them in receiving the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye into the quarterfinals where they dismantled Paramus Catholic, 61-9.

St. Joseph Regional was positioned as the six seed due to their early season struggles. Their recent move in a positive direction also correlated to them moving back up the rankings where they sat at No. 8 as the dual action began.

The Green Knights easily handled Seton Hall Prep, 62-10, to set up a rematch with Christian Brothers. A look at 46-29 team score said it all. The Knights not only reversed the initial outcome but won in commanding fashion to advance to the state semis slated for Thursday the 13th.

Delbarton would face No. 32 St. John Vianney and come out ahead by a comfortable 45-17 margin. St. Joe was set to see No. 29 St. Peter’s Prep, who they would neutralize with a 39-21 count to set up a state final showdown versus Delbarton.

Sunday afternoon at the Jersey Mike’s Arena at Rutgers would be the third consecutive Group A state final with these two teams battling it out. Delbarton claimed supremacy last year, with St. Joe taking the crown in 2023.

A win on Sunday would essentially eradicate the earlier turmoil and poor results for the Green Knights. They had already battled back to become a top ten team again, could they go the next step and get back ahead of the Green Wave as they were predicted to be when the season began?

The current national rankings suggested that Delbarton would win their second crown in a row, but counting St. Joe out would be foolish as they were riding some serious momentum into the arena on Sunday.

The showdown was slated to start at the 113lb weight class, which would favor the Green Wave as they had the No. 5 guy in the country, Cam Sontz lined up to face nationally unranked Charles Esposito. Sontz used two takedowns to work to an 8-3 decision of Esposito.

Delbarton wasn’t able to start a win streak, though, and it wasn’t surprising as No. 17 Johnathon McGinity was up for St. Joe Regional at 120 to face honorable mention Tommy Marchetti. McGinity dominated the scoring only allowing two escapes en route to an 8-2 win to even the team score at three each.

St. Joe’s Mikey Bautista has spent a few moments of time in our national rankings at 126. Although he does not currently appear in them, he was still favored to handle Braden Jones and did just that piling on points after a scoreless first to claim a 9-0 major decision.

The excitement of back-to-back wins gave Vincent Paino an extra jolt that enabled him to upset No. 30 Ryan DeGeorge, 5-3 in the ultimate tiebreaker, at 132, and increase their margin to seven, 10-3.

With No. 6 Adrian DeJesus stepping on the mat next for St. Joe at 138, it was expected they would pocket a fourth straight win, but honorable mention Chase Quenault was feeling something different from that and surprised DeJesus and the folks in the stands with a 9-2 victory, that took a late escape from DeJesus to stave off the major decision.

DeJesus was one of the Knights injured grapplers. He has been out of action for some time and just returned in time for the state duals. Unfortunately, it appears he reaggravated his injury as he kept grabbing at his neck and shoulder area near the end of the bout with Quenault.

St. Joe’s Ryan Mitchell was an unknown commodity with just a 5-1 record. Nicholas Schwartz on the other hand has been enjoying a stellar freshman campaign for Delbarton. Mitchell used a cradle for a takedown in the first period, and kept it going, eventually securing a 9-2 win, to get their lead back to seven, 13-6.

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Delbarton was entering a part of their lineup where they expected to get some elusive bonus points. Through the first six matches there was just one major decision for the only bonus points distributed in the early going.

The Green Wave’s No.2 Jayden James got right to work at 150 on changing that theme and stuck Angelo Paino in 56 seconds to close the gap to one, 13-12. When Trevor Jones secured the 19-3 technical fall of Joseph Paretti it gave Delbarton its first lead of the day, 17-13.

St. Joe gave them six more points for free when they decided to skip on facing No. 5 Alessio Perentin at 165lbs. The Delbarton advantage was now a ten-point divide, 23-13.

No. 4 Ryan Burton (175) worked relentlessly in his effort to deck Jesse DeNegri but could not contain his adversary on his back. Six takedowns propelled Burton to a 20-5 tech fall.

Delbarton’s No. 8 CJ Betz did not allow the St. Joe side to revel in their good fortune for long as he took out honorable mention Kaleb Jackson, 5-1, at 190lbs, to gain a few points back after Burton’s big win.

Down 26-18 with three matches left on the docket was manageable for the Knights since a look at the rosters revealed their guys are all nationally ranked while only one of Delbarton’s remaining three held that designation.

If St. Joe’s Regional was going to pull off this upset, they wouldn’t need a dramatic run of three pins like Stillwater did to win the 6A Oklahoma crown on Saturday, but they would need to take three in a row to pull it out.

Even two pins would leave them vulnerable to a comeback in that third match as a 30-26 edge could still be overcome if the right sequence of events unfolded.

Having been without No. 5 Anthony Harris for most of the year due to transfer guidelines, it was comforting for the Green Knights to have that marquee talent ready to go at 215 versus the unranked nationally, Elbrus Majagah. Harris was on his way to a possible tech fall when he hit a smooth sort of duck under that put Majagah on his back and collected the fall at the 3:09 mark.

No. 13 Cristian Alvarez was up next at heavyweight for St. Joe, and he too would face a foe who is not ranked in the country, August Moser. Moser wasn’t going to lay down for Alavarez and kept him in check enough to just drop a regular decision, 8-1.

Those two wins got the Knights back in front of the Green Wave but just by one single point, 27-26. Any kind of win from either team would decide this year’s state champion.

Like the previous two bouts, St. Joe was favored in this one, too, as their rep when the 106lbers closed the dual would be No. 3 JoJo Burke with Delbarton countering by putting No. 20 PJ Terranova in the circle. It started out looking like Burke would take care of business easily, but Terranova had some fight in him and hung tough, keeping it close, before succumbing to Burke, 8-6.

Burke’s win completed an amazing turnaround for St. Joseph’s Regional. Saving it from a season that was veering off course and beginning to look like a lost cause, a case of what if, in early January.

So, it seems what they say is true because as expected St. Joe proved itself to be New Jersey’s top team after all. It took a detour to get here, but it’s the finish that matters more than the path to get there.

Six other state titles were decided on Sunday. The Non-Public Group B championship was won by Camden Catholic 32-20 over Pope John Xxiii.

Five were public school classifications: Group I was won by Delaware Valley Regional 47-16 versus Hanover Park. Rumson-Fair Haven staked claim to GII with a 40-28 win against Caldwell. GIII was claimed by Delsea by defeating Brick Memorial, 45-30. The GIV champ was North Hunderton 37-27 over Phillipsburg. Southern Regional took out Bridgewater-Raritan, 58-18, for the top honors in Group V.

NP-A

Match #1 1st Place Match

St Joseph (Montvale) HS defeated Delbarton School 30-26

113 - Cameron Sontz (Delbarton School) over Charles Esposito (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) Dec 8-3

120 - Johnathon McGinty (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over Tommy Marchetti (Delbarton School) Dec 8-2

126 - Mikey Bautista (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over Braden Jones (Delbarton School) Maj 9-0

132 - Vincent Paino (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over Ryan DeGeorge (Delbarton School) UTB 5-3

138 - Chase Quenault (Delbarton School) over Adrian DeJesus (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) Dec 9-2

144 - Ryan Mitchell (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over Nicholas Schwartz (Delbarton School) Dec 9-2

150 - Jayden James (Delbarton School) over Angelo Paino (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) Fall 0:57

157 - Trevor Jones (Delbarton School) over joseph Paretti (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) TF 19-3

165 - Alessio Perentin (Delbarton School) over Unknown (Unattached) Forf

175 - Ryan Burton (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over Jesse DeNegri (Delbarton School) TF 20-5

190 - Carl Betz (Delbarton School) over Kaleb Jackson (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) Dec 5-1

215 - Anthony Harris (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over Elbrus Majagah (Delbarton School) Fall 3:09

285 - Cristian Alvarez (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over August Moser (Delbarton School) Dec 8-1

106 - JoJo Burke (St Joseph (Montvale) HS) over Peter Terranova (Delbarton School) Dec 8-6

NP-B

Match #1 1st Place Match

Camden Catholic defeated Pope John Xxiii 32-30

126 - Lazarus Joyce (Camden Catholic) over Frankie Spagnola (Pope John Xxiii) Fall 1:22

132 - Sammy Spaulding (Camden Catholic) over Dalton Weber (Pope John Xxiii) Dec 4-1

138 - Carson Walsh (Pope John Xxiii) over EJ Bonnette (Camden Catholic) TF 20-3

144 - Donny Almeyda (Pope John Xxiii) over Eric Swanson (Camden Catholic) Maj 13-4

150 - Michael Craft (Camden Catholic) over Lukas Katsigiannis (Pope John Xxiii) Dec 9-3

157 - Kage Jones (Camden Catholic) over Jake Zerden (Pope John Xxiii) TF 18-2

165 - Braydan Lombreglia (Pope John Xxiii) over Terry Terch (Camden Catholic) Dec 11-4

175 - Cole Dunham (Pope John Xxiii) over Cole Trotz (Camden Catholic) Fall 1:04

190 - Jaden Simpson (Camden Catholic) over David Thomson (Pope John Xxiii) Dec 10-4

215 - Shawn Baumann (Pope John Xxiii) over Tristan Owen (Camden Catholic) Dec 7-5

285 - Jarrod Cofrancesco (Pope John Xxiii) over Lars Stegner (Camden Catholic) Fall 3:46

106 - Zach Reali (Camden Catholic) over Unknown (Unattached) Forf

113 - Jake Holly (Pope John Xxiii) over Dom Digiacomo (Camden Catholic) Dec 5-3

120 - Chase Martino (Camden Catholic) over Matthew Reilly (Pope John Xxiii) Fall 1:51

Group I

Match #1 1st Place Match

Delaware Valley Regional defeated Hanover Park Hs 47-16

126 - Jaden Perez (Delaware Valley Regional) over Nick DiFrancescantonio (Hanover Park Hs) TF 17-0

132 - Santino Danise (Hanover Park Hs) over Tye Falkenstein (Delaware Valley Regional) Maj 9-1

138 - Michael Hasson (Delaware Valley Regional) over Cristian Cesaro (Hanover Park Hs) TF 19-4

144 - Joey Tantawi (Hanover Park Hs) over Sebastian Dobak (Delaware Valley Regional) Dec 4-2