Bound Brook Wrestling

Weight, Name, Grade and Record: 103 Kevin Shivers-9 14-14 -3rd Ridgefield Tournament -4th Somerset County 112 David Shubick-10 19-11 -1st Ridgefield Tournament -4th Somerset County -4th District 18 (Career Record 24-29) 112 Billy Vivona-9 3-4 119 John Perez-9 10-19 -4th Ridgefield Tournament -4th Somerset County 130 Andrew Flanagan-9 34-7 -1st Ridgefield Tournament -1st Somerset County -2nd District 18 -2nd Region 5 -5th State of New Jersey 135 Brad Galeta-12 15-4 -1st Ridgefield Tournament -3rd District 18 (Career Record 92-24) 140 Jason Gregor-11 13-16 -3rd Ridgefield Tournament (Career Record 16-22) 145 Jaime Martinez-10 10-16 (Career Record 18-30) 145 Steven Bradley-10 9-11 152 John Jannuzzi-9 19-13 -3rd Ridgefield Tournament -4th Somerset County -3rd District 18 152 Greg Flynn-9 3-3 160 Jason Huzinec -12 17-8 -1st Ridgefield Tournament -3rd Somerset County -3rd District 18 (Career Record 58-33) 171 Michael Roberts-9 18-10 -2nd Ridgefield Tournament -4th Somerset County 275 Maurice Perry-9 2-16

BY BOB BEHRE For the Star-Ledger As impressive as it is to win a region championship, that didn't seem to be enough for a trio of wrestlers at the Region 5 Tournament yesterday at the Hunterdon Central Fieldhouse in Flemington. Andrew Flanagan of Bound Brook, Rick Frondorf of North Hunterdon and Hunterdon Central's Mark Eberstein didn't just win -- they put on a show for the 3,500 in attendance. The championship was a historical one for Frondorf. When he claimed the 152-pound title, Frondorf became the first wrestler to ever win four Region 5 titles. The regions began a part of the state tournament in 1961. The cat-like Flanagan defeated Edison's 130-pounder Tyler Solley, 14-4, in a bout in which he accumulated six takedowns through the first two periods, exhibiting quickness, agility and stamina. He attributes his success to hard work in the wrestling room. "The main reason I win most of my matches is because of conditioning," he said, crediting assistant coach Mart Gleason's practice regimen. "Marty's got us in tip-top shape so we can go the whole time. The bouts are easier than practice." Flanagan (32-2), who finished fifth in the NJSIAA Tournament as a freshman last year at 130 pounds, appears primed to bring home more hardware when the state tournament is convened Friday through Sunday at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Solley had entered the match with a 31-0 record and was a champion in the District 19 and Greater Middlesex Conference tournaments. "If someone is going to beat me, he's going to go through hell," Flanagan said.

By HARRY FREZZA JR. Staff Writer Published in the Courier News on March 9, 2003 RARITAN TOWNSHIP -- The final round of the Region 5 Tournament on Saturday afternoon at the Hunterdon Central Fieldhouse offered an opportunity for redemption for six area wrestlers who had finished second last year. None of them let the opportunity slip away. Hillsborough High School senior 103-pounder Andrew Gewain, Bound Brook sophomore 130-pounder Andrew Flanagan, Pingry junior 145-pounder Zack Shanaman, Hunterdon Central junior 171-pounder Mike Somma and senior 215-pounder Mark Eberstein, and Piscataway senior 275-pounder Brian Butler -- all second a year ago -- all won region championships. "I would have liked to have won last year, but it feels a lot better knowing how hard it was not being able to do it last year, and turning it around and winning this year," Flanagan said. The state's defending 152-pound champion, North Hunterdon senior Ricky Frondorf, won his fourth region championship, while Woodbridge's Marcello Medini, who won at 125 last year, earned the tournament's outstanding wrestler award by pinning returning region champion Kyle Poulsen of Piscataway at 135. Delaware Valley 189-pounder George Peterson also won, scoring a 12-9 win over North Hunterdon's Rob Pellechio. The top three finishers in each weight class advanced to the state tournament Friday at the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall. Wrestling begins at 6 p.m. Friday with preliminary and prequarterfinal matches. The tournament continues Saturday and Sunday, wrapping up with the final round at about 2 p.m. Sunday. Flanagan and Shanaman both placed fifth in the state tournament last year at 130 and 140, respectively, after losing in the region finals. Gewain was sixth at 103, while Eberstein was sixth at 189. They all proved they could recover from region losses, but now they will enter the state tournament as seeded wrestlers. Gewain, who has dedicated this season to his grandfather, who died several weeks ago, improved to 27-0 for the season and 99-16 for his career with a 5-4 win over Old Bridge's John Pagnotta. Gewain scored the winning takedown with 36 seconds left in regulation. "Once I got the first takedown at the end of the second period, I knew I could get another one," Gewain said. "Pretty much when either one of us shot, I was confident I could get another one." Flanagan scored seven takedowns in beating Greater Middlesex Conference champion and previously unbeaten Tyler Solley, now 31-1, of Edison. Flanagan lost a wild 19-10 decision to Poulsen last year but was in control from the start with Solley. Flanagan improved to 33-2 and 67-9. "The main reason I win a lot of my matches is because of conditioning. Marty (Bound Brook assistant coach Gleason) has us in tip-top condition so we can go the whole time. We get out here and it's easier than practice," Flanagan said. "I have to go, go, go all the time and use my conditioning and technique. Hopefully, I'll either be a better technician than the other guy, outbrawl him or he'll wear out by the end." Shanaman, who looked sluggish in winning last week's District 18 final, looked very sharp in winning his first region title after placing third as a freshman and second last year. He gave up the first takedown to Bishop Ahr junior Kody Hamrah, who came into the match with a 33-0 record, but Shanaman dominated thereafter, winning 8-3. "Now I can really focus on next weekend," Shanaman said. "I'm going to be a better seed this time." Shanaman said he believed it was the first time he had been taken down in New Jersey this season. He lost his two matches in the Beast of the East Tournament in Delaware in December. "I thought he was doing something else and I countered the wrong way. He took a nice low single and I didn't know he was going to do that either," Shanaman (28-2) said. "You really can't prepare for Kody. I watched him once or twice, but it's like wrestling a completely different person. He's good at creating scrambles. He has great hips." Top-seeded Frondorf beat Delaware Valley's Ricky Kurtz, who had advanced to the finals by stunning Somerville's previously unbeaten and second-seeded Allen Van Ness with a fall. Van Ness went on to place third. The one match that a lot of fans came to see came to fruition, but it didn't last long. Eberstein stunned Bernards senior Sean McMahon by fall in 33 seconds. Eberstein came in at 34-0, 102-26, while McMahon was 29-0, 88-16. "I realized about an hour ago that this was the last time I was going to wrestle in this gym and I wasn't going to leave here without having my hand raised," Eberstein said. "I was pumped up. I had the crowd behind me. I gave it all I had. It didn't last too long, so it was good." Butler, pinned by Delaware Valley's Josh Wurst last year at 2:18, pinned No.‚2 seed Mike Williams of Hopewell Valley in 1:11. "He just kept coming hard, so I took his arm, kind of like a fireman's carry and I had him," Butler said. "I had to come back after last year and pick up some revenge over somebody else." from the Courier News website www.c-n.com

Bound Brook wrestling program celebrates 500 wins, rich history By HARRY FREZZA JR. Staff Writer Published in the Courier News on February 16, 2003 By HARRY FREZZA JR. Staff Writer Sixty-seven years later, Lindo Nangeroni remembers the skin burns and mud. He remembers the storage area the first Bound Brook High School wrestling team called a practice room in the winter of 1935-36, the one which his fellow students used to keep their bicycles during school. He`s closing in on 84 now but at one time, he was a 16-year-old wrestler on a team that piled into a car to travel to matches at Freehold, Blair Academy or Easton, where the team once beat the Lafayette College freshmen. Nangeroni looked at a picture of that team in the 1936 Echo, the school`s yearbook. The team kneeled and stood near the entrance of the old high school with uniforms that might suggest a swimming or basketball squad. William Zydiak, who was Bound Brook and Somerset County`s first state champion in 1937, stands in the back with arms folded. Twelve wrestlers. That team started a relay to a milestone that ended Wednesday night when Bound Brook recorded its 500th win. When told his alma mater had reached the 500-mark, two-time state champ Joe Zelasny wondered: "Did we get there first?" No, but not many wrestling teams throughout the state can say they`ve reached 500. In Hunterdon County, the big three -- Hunterdon Central, North Hunterdon and Delaware Valley -- have reached it, along with Somerville and Bound Brook in Somerset County. Somerville started its program a year before Bound Brook did, leaving Nangeroni to wonder why the Pioneers weren`t on that first schedule. "It was really an informal setback back then compared to now," he said. Nangeroni chuckles softly at the schedule that first year -- of how far schools were spread out then, at the thought of what wrestlers in 2003 would think of using that little storage room with muddy canvas mats to roll around on. "We had these canvas mats and we`d roll them up and down," said Nangeroni, whose sons Peter and Lindo both finished third in the state tournament in 1967 and `68, respectively. His brother, Louis, was a runner-up in 1937. "Those canvas mats were old and dirty," Nangeroni said. "It was like being in your basement, really. We didn`t have headgear or knee pads, you`d get burns from rubbing on that surface." He later wrestled at Rutgers, then worked for 40 years as a chemist at the once-mammoth American Cyanamid plant in Bridgewater, located where Commerce Bank Ballpark is today. News that Bound Brook had reached the 500-mark is something the community and school is very proud of, and the word has been spread around to a very big fraternity that has branched out all over the country. The program was started by John Springer, a physical education teacher, who also coached football and baseball. After a five-year suspension of the program because of World War II, it was brought back by James Connerton and Mike Schibanoff. In the 1950s, it was Schibanoff and Norman Cromack at the helm. Schibanoff, well known throughout the state as one of the sport`s pioneers as a coach and official, is regarded as the main influence in the Crusaders` rise. He brought in a talented young coach named Bob Zarbantany, who led Bound Brook to five solid years between 1963-68. His teams went 45-11, winning three district and three Mountain Valley Conference championships. He returned to Easton Area High School, his alma mater, leading the Red Rovers to eight state individual titles. "I remember the environment being very good in Bound Brook, the fans and the families were pretty level-headed about the sport," said Zarbantany, who is a sales representative in the hotel business. "It was a great opportunity. I had been an assistant with Harold Vandermark (at North Hunterdon), but Mike Schibanoff said I could be a head coach at Bound Brook. The tradition was already there when I came." The run of success continued until a dip in the early 1970s, ironically at a time when the school was enjoying great success in football, basketball and baseball. Between 1969-74, the team went 15-44-2 as the community`s feeder system struggled. By 1977, a rejuvenated junior high school program yielded a varsity team that went 13-0 and a state champion in Pete Schuyler, who won at 129 pounds as a junior and was a runner-up as a senior in 1978. The program has rebuilt itself in the past 15 years under the direction of assistant coach Martin A. Gleason who, along with longtime head coach Len Koupiaris, has stabilized and turned the program into a consistent winner. Unlike most of the early wrestling powerhouses, Bound Brook has had to survive a dramatic enrollment change, as sending districts like Bridgewater, Manville and Middlesex began building their own schools. Bound Brook and Somerset County`s first state champion -- Zydiak, who won at 175 pounds in 1937 -- lived in Manville. Zelasny, one of three Crusaders to win two state titles, Sal Amato and Mario Gentile were the others. Zelasny, the only Crusader to win a state tournament outstanding wrestler award, moved from South Bound Brook to Middlesex after his sophomore year, and Mike Sandusky, who is perhaps the greatest athlete ever to graduate from Bound Brook, grew up in Manville before moving to the Finderne section of Bridgewater during his senior year, when he won a state title at heavyweight in 1953. Sandusky later became a three-sport All-American at the University of Maryland, then became an All-Pro with the Pittsburgh Steelers. In 1937, Lindo Nangeroni graduated in a class of more than 230. In 1960, there were close to 300 seniors. But by June of 1999, a year after Bound Brook`s record-breaking 23-2 season, the senior class graduated just over 100. But Koupiaris and Gleason still find wrestlers. In 1998-99, the team won Somerset County, District 18 and Mountain Valley Conference titles in the same season for the first time since the 1960s. In `99 and 2000, 275-pounder Chris Knapp just missed becoming the school`s 13th state champion, losing in the state tournament final. Sophomore 130-pounder Andrew Flanagan hopes to be the lucky 13th. "It`s really something great to be part of," said Flanagan, who hopes to become the school`s first 100-bout winner. He has 55. "I don`t think I realize how big a deal it is right now, but maybe in a couple of years I`ll realize. With the way we work, it was going to happen sooner or later. I`m just happy to be part of it." Zydiak, who died last May at 82, also played center for the Virginia Tech football team. He was later a captain in the Air Force and lived for many years in Alabama. He was the first of 12 state champions. Bound Brook has had 61 state tournament place-winners, 19 region champions, 136 district champs and three two-time state champions. Zelasny, who lives in Hackettstown with his wife Cheryl, was the outstanding wrestler in the 1960 state tournament at Rutgers` College Avenue Gymnasium after winning in 1958 at 106. "I got too cocky as a junior in the districts and got beat, and back then, if you finished second, you were done for the season," he said. But he was unbeaten his senior year. He beat returning 106-pound champion John Leek of Collingswood and returning 115-pound champ John Disantis of Vineland to take the 115-pound championship. "I still say I had Disantis pinned, they just didn`t call it," said Zelasny, who won 6-4. Zelasny`s family moved to South Bound Brook from New Boston, Pa., when he was in fifth grade. His father was a coal miner, and his godfather was killed during a cave-in. Zelasny`s father was sitting right next to him when it happened, leading the Zelasny`s to move. His father, Joseph, worked at Union Carbide, but his work in the mines eventually led to black lung, costing him his life. Zelasny went out for wrestling because a couple of his friends figured they`d give it a try when they were freshmen. It paid off, because Zelasny became Bound Brook`s 11th state champ and the last one before Pete Schuyler won at 129 pounds in 1977. "We had some real characters on the team. We had people like Bobby Mizerek and Charley Welch," Zelasny said. "Mike Schibanoff was really the force. I remember wrestling the Army and Navy plebes and beating them up pretty good. After that, they didn`t want to wrestle us any more. I think that was part of the reason we were beating them." By the time Zelasny was a senior, Manville High School was opened and had its own wrestling team. Middlesex, which had its first graduating class in 1964 -- Zelasny`s sister Bernadette among them -- was open. But Zelasny kept on coming to Bound Brook, either driving or walking over from Fairview Avenue in Middlesex to attend school. "When I won in 1960, I remember they treated it as a big deal," said Zelasny, who wrestled at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania for a year. "I remember Middlesex High School had an athletic dinner and I was one of the honored guests. It was kind of funny." from the Courier News website www.c-n.com

By HARRY FREZZA JR. Staff Writer Published in the Courier News on February 12, 2003 One of the state's oldest high school wrestling programs reached a milestone Tuesday night. Bound Brook High School recorded the program's 500th victory, 52-24 win over Governor Livingston in Berkeley Heights. The win came in head coach Len Koupiaris' 17th year. Koupiaris, who is closing in on his own milestone, has 196 of the 500. Bound Brook started its wrestling program with intramural teams in 1932 before becoming a varsity program in 1936 under head coach John "Art" Springer. Governor Livingston head coach Rick Iacono, a 1964 Bound Brook High School graduate, was a district champion for the Crusaders. Bound Brook, which raised its 2002-03 record to 10-6, celebrated its milestone with a cake presentation and pictures after the match. The school plans to make a banner and display it on the high school gymasium wall to acknowledge the milestone. "I think it's very important for us because it teaches the kids the history of the program," Koupiaris said. "We have a long history here and have had a lot of successful teams. Hopefully, the kids can carry it on." Sophomore 135-pounder Andrew Flanagan, who placed fifth in the state tournament last year at 130 pounds, is hoping to become the first Crusader to win 100 career bouts. He improved to 54-10 with a major decision victory at 135 pounds. Bound Brook is the second-oldest program in Somerset County. Somerville, at one time Bound Brook's major rival, started its varsity wrestling program in 1935. The Bound Brook program was suspended from 1943 through 1948 because of World War II. Bound Brook 112-pound sophomore Jose Abarca gave the Crusadersa 30-12 lead with a fall. That was followed by consecutive forfeit wins by freshman Jesse Harrington at 119 and sophomore Jimmy Lee at 125. Junior David Shubick won by decision at 130 and Flanagan gave Bound Brook a 51-12 edge before Union County Tournament champ Mike Fullowan ended the Crusader run by pinning junior Steve Bradley at 140. Bound Brook will next wrestle Friday night at Point Pleasant Beach before taking on Bergen Catholic and Middlesex in Middlesex on Saturday. The Crusaders return home Tuesday when they play host to Shore Regional in a Central Jersey Group I semifinal match. Bound Brook has won seven Central Jersey Group I titles. from the Courier News website www.c-n.com