By Andy Loigu

With the post season and a shot at a sectional championship fast approaching, the Warren Hills Blue Streaks’ boys wrestling team stood at 16-5 after a 40-15 win at rival Hackettstown on Friday evening. They hope the power points earned in the win over the 8-6 Tigers moves them up in the seeding brackets for the upcoming team state playoffs.

The return of 170-pound senior Nick Hildebrant to the lineup has fortified the Streaks’ arsenal. He suffered a painful knee sprain during the John Goles Tournament in late December and walked on crutches for five days. Since his mid-January return he is 12-3 and has earned bonus points in seven of those wins. Wearing a brace, he did resistance band work to strengthen the leg but was concerned about his conditioning during the time he could not get on the mat and wrestle.

“I’m more confident now, taking more shots and pushing the pace in my matches, not holding anything back,” he said, adding he hopes to close his season with a memorable finish.

For added inspiration, and appreciation of the winning Warren Hills tradition, a 30-year reunion of the 1990 Blue Streaks’ state championship squad was held at a recent home match.

“That gives us all a feeling of family and reminds us of what we wrestle for,” the 170-pounder said.

Although the final score was somewhat one sided, the match with Hackettstown featured many competitive battles through the various weight classes, as wrestlers on both teams stayed off their backs. The only wins by fall for Warren Hills came at 113 and 132, accomplished by Shawn Redfield and Logan Nauta. Hackettstown’s only pin came at 220 by Jack Gordon.

The expansion of the program, with enough girls wrestling to produce a complete lineup of their own and compete in all-girls matches against other schools, has been challenging for the Blue Streaks’ young head coach David Sbriscia.

“As a staff, duties and responsibilities are split,” he said. “When I am unable to attend events due to my overlap, my girls varsity assistant Michael Arminio is in charge. We have a delegated varsity assistant for both programs and a JV coach as well.”

The program has doubled in size in each of the past three seasons. Sbriscia expects to see 20 girls in the program next year. “Supervision and scheduling can be difficult at times and it has increased our coaching responsibilities to usually seven days a week,” he said.

He’s happy that the program is doing a lot of winning while it is growing by leaps and bounds, giving his coaches and athletes credit for being hard workers who do their due diligence with spirit and lots of enthusiasm.

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Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.