Wrestling: Improving New Brunswick sees mixed results at quad
FRANKLIN (Somerset) — In his very first wrestling practice, Jovan Mercado got a black eye. Talk about a welcoming introduction to the sport.
“It was horrible,” the New Brunswick High School senior said. “I actually wanted to quit the first week. But it was just something about the team. (Coach) Jason (McLean) gives a lot of inspirational quotes. So he says a lot of things like he’ll throw you into the den and you just got to survive with the wolves. And if you live, lick your wounds and you keep fighting.”
That bounce-back attitude sums up the Zebras season as a whole. New Brunswick’s young team includes up to seven freshmen in the starting lineup and inexperienced upperclassmen. Naturally, there’s been some figurative black eyes at times along with glimpses of grandeur.
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That was evident during Saturday’s quad meet at Franklin High School. New Brunswick (5-8) went 1-2, beating Franklin 57-15, but losing to Ridge 33-28 and to Voorhees 61-12. Chalk it up as another learning experience with the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament approaching on Jan. 27 and Jan. 28.
“We’re literally learning on the job,” McLean said. “Sometimes when you learn on the job you have a bad day at work. But I think they’re going to improve. They’re tough kids. I have a group of freshmen that are phenomenal. They’re hard workers and they’re getting there. … The development is phenomenal. I just got to keep them on a roll. We got to keep going. We got to keep moving.”
The youngsters seeing time is partly because of talent, partly because of necessity. Three potential starters didn’t return for various reasons such as moving to another town. Among the top freshmen are 113-pounder Zion Blanco and 220-pounder Keshon Davilla, who got the only win against Voorhees on the mat. Davilla beat the Vikings Sam Huff 8-5, going 1-2 in the quad.
Heavyweight Ramiro Osuna, Jr. got a forfeit win against Voorhees. The junior earned pins in his two other matches against Franklin and Ridge. Steven Almanzar, a promising freshman 132-pounder, went 2-1 on the day, which included a forfeit win.
Cristian Pinto, the only returning senior along with Mercado, also went 2-1 on the day. Senior 182-pounder Dominion Ezechibueze, wrestling for the first time to stay in shape with hopes of playing college football, earned two forfeits on the day.
Mercado, meanwhile, is now 15-5 on the season by going 2-1. He scored pins against Franklin and Ridge, while getting pinned against Voorhees. Earlier in the season, he placed second at the Buc Classic at Red Bank Regional on Jan. 14, and took third at the East Brunswick Bear Invitational on Dec. 28.
While many of the New Brunswick wrestlers started in middle school, Mercado’s career had a slightly different start. He played basketball as a freshman. As a sophomore, he switched to winter track, but joined his sister on the wrestling team after practices started. One catch, unbeknown to the coaches, they didn’t tell their parents, thinking mom and dad wouldn’t be familiar with the sport.
As far as that black eye? Mercado told his parents that his sister accidentally threw a book bag at him. Eventually, he confessed to them before the district tournament.
“I had this dream of telling them and then going to the districts and winning it like the movies,” he said. “But I ended up getting technical fall. It was just terrible.”
Mercado said his parents were shocked, but let him wrestle as a junior and have grown to like it, attending his matches. Mercado, who also played football, has cracked the varsity lineup all three seasons and has steadily improved. He went 9-14 as a sophomore and finished 16-9 as a junior, taking third in District 20.
“For the freshmen to see that a kid that’s been wrestling for three years blossom like that, they understand what they could be,” McLean said. “He can set an example by being in front of them.”
While Mercado hopes to wrestle in college, he also sees the potential in the younger wrestlers.
“We’re a team, that definitely if we lose, we never lose a lesson and we also work on what we did wrong during practice and improve,” Mercado said.
McLean, which started the Zebras program 11 seasons ago, also likes how things are looking.
“They’ll literally do anything we ask of them,” McLean said. “We’ve had different times where we couldn’t get into the school, (so) we had morning workouts at 6:30 in the morning. All the starters are there. Just simple stuff like that. We go on little weird field trips and they’re all about it. As far as their sense of commitment, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”