Plainfield illustrates city schools' impact on wrestling

A day before the state’s best teams gathered for the group championships in Toms River, Plainfield High School won an event of equal importance to the sport and its future.

The Cardinals upset top-seeded Trenton in the New Jersey Urban Wrestling League tournament semifinals on criteria before avenging a 52-16 regular-season loss with a one-point victory over Linden to win the championship Saturday afternoon.

Plainfield concluded the dual-meet portion of its schedule with a school-record 19 wins, illustrating how far the once-downtrodden program in a city known more for its basketball prowess has come since the 1990s, when the Cardinals compiled a 3-127 mark for a .023 winning percentage.

The team’s success, along with the vast improvement of many of the NJUWL’s 13 other members, bodes well for high school wrestling, a sport in which participation continues to rapidly decline.

READ: South Plainfield wrestling team three-peats with victory over Delsea

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, male wrestling participation has decreased each of the past seven years, plummeting from 273,732 in 2010-11 to 244,804 last season, translating to a loss of 28,928 male wrestlers during that span.

Over the last four years, New Jersey has witnessed a decline of 1,056 male wrestlers, according to NJSIAA statistics.

The Garden State, however, still ranks among the Top 10 nationally in male wrestler participation, and remains a breeding ground for successful college programs, including 21st-ranked Rutgers University, whose 25-man roster features 23 in-state products.

The decline can be attributed to a multitude of factors, including sport specialization, an increase in other extracurricular activities and that wrestling remains a physically and mentally demanding sport to which some student-athletes may be reluctant to commit.

NJUWL coaches, such as Plainfield’s Will Dodd, have gotten their respective student-athletes to buy into the sport and its benefits.

“The New Jersey Urban Wrestling League is doing a huge thing in terms of the lives of these students from these inner-city schools in our state, keeping them goal-oriented, keeping them focused and giving them a purpose to not only be in school, but to be successful in school,” said Dodd, whose 2016-17 team captain, Anthony Nunez, earned a full academic scholarship to Rutgers University, where he is majoring in mechanical engineering.

READ: GMC wrestling notebook, final Top 10, final division standings and records

“I can speak for a lot of the (NJUWL) coaches — we stress academics, attendance in school and proper behavior in school, just as we stress drills and takedowns every day in practice. We are all kind of on the same page in terms of what each of us is trying to do with our program.”

Half of the wrestlers in Plainfield’s starting lineup have each won 19 or more bouts, with reigning Union County Tournament heavyweight champion Christian Chajon and 138-pound teammate Walter Pineda, who placed third in the county tournament, taking 30-5 records into this weekend’s district tournament.

Those seven wrestlers combined for fewer than 10 victories during the 2015-16 season when a freshman-laden Plainfield squad lost as many dual meets as it won this year, including five defeats by 70 or more points. Undaunted, they stuck with the sport, training and participating in camps and clinics during the off-season while working just as hard in the classroom.

“They are able to push each other and motivate the younger guys,” Dodd said of his core wrestlers. “Our younger guys do everything those guys do, which is a good thing because those (core) guys are doing the right things inside the room and outside the room.”

Chajon has a chance to be the first wrestler from Plainfield to qualify for the NJSIAA Individual Wrestling Championships since Dawud Hicks, who placed fifth in Atlantic City in 2010 and 2011. Plainfield’s Most Outstanding Wrestler trophy is named for Hicks, who was fatally shot in the city’s West End in January 2014.

READ: High School Sports Roundup for Tuesday, Feb. 13

“They know of his accolades and of his wrestling career at the high school,” Dodd said of Hicks. “They look at his videos on YouTube and FloWrestling and they are amazed at how skilled he was and what a force he was on the mat. I made sure to make them aware of that. They need to know there have been kids just like that who have gone through this high school and program and have had success.”

Plainfield’s run to the championship of last weekend’s NJUWL tournament, which featured four sectional qualifiers, set the Cardinals up nicely for the postseason.

“We are really starting to legitimize ourselves as a bona-fide organization within the state, which gives our tournament a lot more clout and respectability because it's not just a bunch of inner-city teams that have half a lineup that are seeking the best competition,” Dodd said of the NJUWL, which was established three years ago. “It’s good to see how far we have come.”

In the case of Plainfield, the Cardinals are becoming a family on and off the mat, a fact that became abundantly evident to Dodd last weekend.

Unlike most teams, which create a makeshift tunnel through the formation of two parallel lines out of which a wrestler will run onto the mat as the slow clap of teammates intensifies with speed and volume, this year’s Plainfield squad started its own tradition, forming a circle around the next wrestler scheduled to take the mat while chanting “1-2-3-Plainfield.”

The Cardinals, for no particular reason, randomly changed that mantra to “1-2-3 family” during the middle of their upset of Trenton, perhaps sensing they needed more than just skill to carry them to victory.

“They really wrestled like a family,” Dodd said. “They had a great performance. I can’t say much more than that. They stepped up big-time for each other. Besides us, no one in the tournament thought that we would take first place.”

Six Cardinals — including Johnny Cruz (120), Skyler Frye (145), Shaeed Greene (152) and McRae Nkellefack (170) — medaled in the Union County Tournament, where Dodd’s peers named him Union County Coach of the Year. Sophomore Tylik Epps, owner of a 19-15 record, is next rising star in line for success.

Plainfield has not crowned a state champion since 1969, when Ed Bailey won the 130-pound title at Rutgers University’s College Avenue Gym. Chajon, a senior, represents the school’s best chance to medal in Atlantic City.

“I see no reason why he can’t win a district title,” Dodd said, adding that he believes Chajon has the potential to also finish among the top four at Region IV, whose heavyweight bracket could be stacked should Woodbrdige’s Nick Nyers and Voorhees' Lewis Fernandes, both of whom weigh in at 220 pounds, opt to compete up in class.

Dodd said Chajon’s attitude changed after the Union County Tournament, which gave the heavyweight newfound confidence and reaffirmed his commitment to the sport. Chajon started arriving at practice early, jogging and running sprints before the Cardinals were scheduled to begin, and also increased his number of visits to the weight room.

“He became motivated and gained a kind of confidence in himself by winning that county title,” said Dodd, known on the MMA fighting circuit as Will “The Thrill” Dodd after having fought in such venues as the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. 

“This was all self-motivated, nothing I talked to him about. I’ve been almost backing off a little bit, letting him run with it, not messing with what’s going on in his mind. He’s really wrestling well, being very offensive, which he struggled with earlier this year."

Plainfield Mayor Adrian O. Mapp said all involved with the high school wrestling program have shone "a bright light on the city of Plainfield."

“The success that these students have achieved is a credit to their hard work and dedication,” Mapp said. “I applaud the coaches and congratulate the students for their effort."

The Cardinals are helping a sport with dwindling numbers grow, not just in Plainfield, but perhaps elsewhere in the state.