WRESTLING: South Plainfield falls in Boresch Duals final

After dispatching of host Newton and Morris Knolls in the opening rounds of the 10th annual Henry Boresch Duals, the South Plainfield High School wrestling team dropped a 40-15 decision to Howell in the final.

The Tigers won four bouts against the Rebels with Dan Hedden (138), Frank Ferraro (145), Jordan Handwerger (160) and Christian Gonzalez (182) emerging victorious.

South Plainfield’s Ryan Walsh (2-0 at 126), Nick DiFrancesco (1-0 at 170) and Dakota Pauls (8-6 at 220) lost narrow decisions in the championship round.

“They are a real balanced team,” South Plainfield head coach Kevin McCann said of Howell, “and they won a lot of close tossups.”

South Plainfield opened the tournament with a 53-7 win over Newton and defeated Morris Knolls 37-27 in the semifinals.

The Tigers (9-1), who had a nine-match winning streak snapped, used the event to prepare for their annual sojourn to Norfolk, Va. for the Virginia Duals on Jan. 8-9.

“It’s always good to get the grind of the match after match,” McCann said about the Boresch Duals, which his team won in 2012 and 2013. “Hopefully these guys realize that we are a good team and they come ready to wrestle when we get down there.”

McCann said different stretches of South Plainfield’s lineup having wrestled well at different parts of the season.

“I think we saw some good things,” he said. “We’ve got to put a full match together where we wrestle tough 106 all the way to heavyweight. We are getting good things from different weight classes each match. We’ve got to put it together to accomplish our goals.”

Hanover Park, the defending Boresch Duals champion, was unable to compete in the event because it had already participated in a tournament earlier in the week.

Under NJSIAA rules, member schools cannot participate in more than one tournament per week.