High School wrestling makes welcome return to Woodbury gym
WOODBURY – If it left you wanting more, that's a good thing.
It looks like there's more to come.
Friday night's Colonial Conference meeting between the Audubon and Gateway/Woodbury wrestling teams was an event the moment the first whistle blew.
A long time had passed since Woodbury High School's Cap Paine Gymnasium had hosted a wrestling event, and that time finally ended when Audubon's John Scoleri and Chase Rossi of the “Thundering Gators” put their toes on the line Friday to start their 138-pound bout.
It was a milestone for the program, but it wasn't quite all it could have been, and ultimately the biggest nitpick was how it ended: Audubon took the last two bouts and left the building a 39-30 winner.
But it's a start.
The Woodbury gym is a unique place, with an arched wood ceiling, stained dark brown.
It's bright and it can get loud, when you've got a good crowd in it.
Sadly, that's another nitpick. Because of COVID restrictions, the crowd had to be limited.
Still, those who could get in got treated. The Gators jumped out to a 16-0 lead with a major decision by Chase Rossi, then back-to-back pins by two Woodbury natives, Dom Abbatelli and Andres Cortes.
They just couldn't keep that momentum going.
“We knew coming in, they probably wanted to put a show on,” Audubon coach John Walsh said. “They probably want to try to get more kids from Woodbury coming out for the team. And I told our team that; they needed to bring the intensity and make sure they rose to that moment.”
They did. Audubon freshman Tyler Perozzi found himself in a cement mixer in the first minute of his 126-pound meeting with Colin Kelly in the penultimate bout, but somehow he salvaged the situation. His pin at 1:22 meant fellow freshman Giovanni Patti only needed to avoid getting pinned to secure the victory, but Patti rose to the moment too – he decisioned Vince Abbatelli to finish off the night.
But what a night.
“It's wonderful,” said Eric Hill, a member of the Woodbury school board who wrestled for the team in the mid 1970s. “This is all Dan (Howey)'s doing. He told me and I said excellent – I would love to see that here. It's nostalgic for me.”
There are sights and sounds that are unique to wrestling that had been foreign to that venue for years.
A pennant hangs from the roof to commemorate the Thundering Herd's only district title – a co-championship with Collingswood in 1959.
It's the only sign that there was a program. Woodbury put an end to interscholastic wrestling in the late 1990s. Its co-op agreement with Gateway followed soon after. Students who attend Woodbury that want to take part in wrestling actually represent their Thanksgiving rivals in that sport, as well as cross country and swimming.
The last wrestling event at Woodbury was in 2002.
“All of those events are elsewhere,” Howey said. “We want to bring wrestling back to Woodbury and try to promote it to our middle school students and try to get the community involved.”
It was a good first step, but Howey had envisioned a raucous crowd filling the gym to the rafters in support of the home team.
“I wish we didn't still have COVID restrictions and were able to bring the whole community in,” he said.
The Woodbury basketball team returned home from a meeting with Kingsway about halfway through the night, and some of its members watched briefly from one end of the gym, but apart from them, there was no student cheering section. There were no friends or even siblings.
Wrestlers were allowed to bring two parents each. That's who came.
“I don't think we had many Woodbury fans here tonight,” coach Jim Rutter said. “And that sort of stinks – to take the student section away in a tight match like tonight.”
Still, it's a start, and it was due to happen.
“It's my fourth year as athletic director, and it's something that (Gateway AD) Mike DiCicco and I collaborated on, and Tony Carbone at Audubon was cool with,” Howey said. “We want to promote wrestling at Woodbury and Gateway as well, and I think this is a great event – a great opportunity.”
Though COVID made it harder, technology made it easier. It was obviously the Gateway mat on the floor at Woodbury, which begs some obvious logistical questions.
Or at least, there was a time when it would have.
“The other thing that's changed dramatically over the last decade is the mats are much more portable and lighter,” Howey said. “The last time they had them here, they had to use a forklift. This time, myself, two coaches and a maintenance guy could just roll them up and bring them over.”
Monday, they'll roll them up again and take them back.
And they'll know, going forward, it's worth the trouble, as they always figured it would be.
“Coach (Jamie) Otis has been on our staff two or three years now, and he's a teacher here at Woodbury,” Rutter said. “And we've been talking about it. Last year, we couldn't do it because of COVID. Hopefully we can do this once a year. I wrestled in this building in the late 70s and early 80s myself, for Deptford. And I loved coming here. I love the architecture. It's a cool place to wrestle.”
John A. Lewis is a sports writer for the Burlington County Times, Courier Post and The Daily Journal. E-mail him at jlewis@thebct.com or follow on Twitter @JohnLewis19. Please consider supporting local journalism with a subscription.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Wrestling returns to Woodbury, but Audubon spoils the party
