Westfield's Composto upsets nationally ranked wrestler in NJSIAA tournament

ATLANTIC CITY – There were no celebrations. No hugging. Just a couple high-fives and on to the next match for Westfield’s C.J. Composto after his win in the prequarterfinals in the NJSIAA individual state wrestling tournament.

“I mean, you can’t really get excited Friday night, you know,” the Westfield sophomore said. “Sunday night, hopefully.”

READ: Our complete coverage including Friday's results and pairings for Saturday's rounds

Still, it’s worth rewinding for a moment. Composto, seeded No. 11 at 106 pounds, upset the sixth-seeded Nick Kayal of Bergen Catholic 3-1. Kayal is ranked No. 12 in the country by InterMat and was considered one of the favorites.

The Courier News coverage area – which includes Somerset County, Hunterdon County and parts of Union County – went 7-14 in the prequarterfinals. In the preliminary round, the area went 21-24 (including three head-to-head matches).

The Skyland Conference advanced Hunterdon Central’s Brett Ungar (106), Bound Brook’s Joe Casey (152), North Hunterdon’s Andrew Gapas (138), Voorhees’ Lewis Fernandes (285) and Manville’s Michael Tyle (285). The Union County wrestlers in the Courier News coverage-area still alive are Composto (106) and Sam Wustefeld (195)

Saturday, the tournament continues at Boardwalk Hall with three wrestleback rounds beginning at 9 a.m. The quarterfinals start at 12:30 p.m. Saturday’s second session begins with the semifinals at 6 p.m. followed by wrestleback rounds 4 and 5.

In the quarterfinal, Composto (35-1) meets the third-seeded Ungar (39-1), the Region 5 champ, in an intriguing quarterfinal. Ungar advanced with a 13-3 win and pin in 1:58. Composto won his first match over No. 22 seeded Travis Kotelnicki of Northern Burlington 13-0.

That set up the match with Kayal. After a scoreless first period, Kayal escaped and Composto finished a single-leg takedown for the 2-1 lead. He escaped in the third period and kept attacking to win 3-1.

“It’s not like there was 20 seconds left and I had a 3-1 lead,” Composto said. “There’s 1:50 on the clock. That’s plenty of time for him to get a takedown. So if I knew if I shutdown that wouldn’t be good for me. So I just had to stay on the attack.”

Despite being a two-time region champ, Composto got the 11th-seed.

“If you want to win a tournament, you got to beat the best guys,” Compoto said. “It doesn’t really matter where you beat them. You can’t go into a tournament like this and expecting bad kids. Every single kid here has earned their spot and they’re good. So it doesn’t really matter when you wrestle them because you know you’re going to get them.”

Blue Devils coach Glen Kurz said that his wrestler doesn’t pay attention to the seeds or national rankings.

“He doesn’t care,” Kurz said. “C.J. just wrestles. He doesn’t care where the kid’s from. He just does his thing. That’s what I think is special about him. He doesn’t change the way he wrestles for anybody. … “This year, he’s as good as anybody here. His goal is to win. That’s realistic. I think if his goal was anything else, he’s selling himself short.”

At 195, the second-seeded Scotch Plains-Fanwood’s Wustefeld defeated the No. 15-seeded Luke Chakonis 2-1 on an unnecessary roughness call with under 10 seconds for the win. Chakonis’ two older brothers were both state heavyweight champions.

At 152, Bound Brook’s Casey looks like he’s on a mission. The third seed advanced with a pin in 13 seconds and then beat Region 4 champ Owen Smith of New Providence 15-0 in 2:15. The 19th-seeded beat Emerson/Park Ridge’s No. 14 seeded Jonah Schechtman 2-1 in the preliminary match. Casey is a three-time state placewiner.

At 138, North Hunterdon’s No. 5 seed Andrew Gapas, who placed eighth last season, advanced with a pin and a technical fall. He faces fourth-seeded Aaron Coleman of J.F. Kennedy in the quarterfinals. Coleman defeated Gapas 9-7 in the Region 4 semifinals.

At heavyweight, there was some drama with four area wrestlers in the quarterfinals. The sixth-seeded Lewis Fernandes of Voorhees was tied against Hacketstown’s Joe Andes 2-2 after the first period. The Voorhees junior got a takedown, but Andes scored the reversal. Fernandes got back points off a tilt in the second period for the 5-2 win.

Manville’s seventh-seeded Michael Tyle defeated the No. 10 seed, Cumberland Regional’s Bryce Dunn 7-5 in sudden victory. Tyle used his quickness to get the takedown to move on. Somerville’s Jacob Pidgeon upset the No. 13th-seeded Bailey Paster of Northern Valley Demarest with an overtime pin in 6:34 in the preliminary match. The No. 20th-seed fell 8-2 tot Sterling’s fourth-seeded Lamar Price. Bound Brook’s No. 8 seed Jervey Sistrunk lost 3-2 to Pennsville’s No. 9-seeded Kody Wood 3-2 in tiebreaker one. Sistrunk got called for stalling and gave up an escape in the final 10 seconds of the overtime session.

In the preliminary round, Hunterdon Central’s 24th-seeded Pasquale Vizzoni stunned ninth-seeded Connor Meytrott of Montville with a lateral drop early in the third period to take a 5-3 lead and he held on to win 5-4 in their 138-pound bout.

In the prequarterfinals, however, Vizzoni lost to Boonton’s eighth-seeded Dan Fongaro 5-4. Fongaro rode out Vizzoni in the third period. He’ll be looking to bounce back in Saturday’s consolation rounds.

In another local preliminary upset at 160, North Hunterdon’s No. 22-seeded William Hughes beat No. 11-seeded Anthony Sciuto of Northern Highlands by pin in 49 seconds. In the next match, Hughes fell 11-4 to Hasbrouck Heights’ Matthew Dallara, the No. 6 seed.

Also at 160, Hillsborough’s 14th-seeded Kevin Faulkner took down third-seeded John Poznanski of Colonia for an early lead. Poznanski, though, got a second-period takedown and defeated Faulkner 5-4.