By Andy Loigu

Duro Ajayi of the Warren Hills Blue Streaks won the championship of the 285-pound weight class at the 61st annual John Goles Holiday Wrestling Tournament on Thursday afternoon.

Host Warren Hills also had three second place finishers, as the Streaks finished fifth in the 10-team field with 131 points. The North Hunterdon Lions (185 points) finished first over the runner-up West Morris Wolf Pack (179.5), third place Newton Braves (170) and fourth place Delaware Valley Terriers (134).

Jared Lee (106 pounds), Greg Slivka (120) and Nick Galka (220) were second place finishers for Warren Hills.

Ajayi was dominant in his quarterfinal, winning a 17-2 technical fall in 5:16 over Zach Zuchowski of Del Val. He defeated another Terrier in the semis, when he captured a 7-3 decision over Ryan Sutter. In the final he triumphed over Kevin Ramos of West Morris by a 7-3 score.

Lee advanced to the 106 final with a pair of decisions, 7-4 over Mike Ferrante of West Morris and 6-1 over Chris Micikas of Hopewell Valley. He lost the championship final to Nathan Fitt of Newton in a 9-4 decision.

Slivka won his 120-pound quarterfinal by flooring Ben Brown of Del Val in 4:33. He reached the final by winning a tough 4-2 decision over North Hunterdon’s Connor Quinn, but lost the championship bout by fall in 1:08 to Spencer Stewart of Sparta.

Galka was a buzz saw in the quarterfinals and finals before being stymied in the final, losing a defensive 1-0 decision to Newton’s Luke Fischer. He pinned Chris Cacciabaudo of Hopewell Valley in 1:31 to reach the semis, where he won a 21-6 tech fall in 4:48 over Nicholas Moose of Del Val.

Chris Ostir of Warren Hills reached the semis at 145, where he lost to eventual champion Colin Loughney of West Morris by a 7-3 decision.

The tournament started in 1958 and is the second longest running holiday wrestling tournament in New Jersey. Since John Goles’ passing, it has honored his memory. Goles was the wrestling coach at Washington/Warren Hills from 1943 to 1979, starting with no wrestling experience and learning on the job, and growing into the New Jersey high school wrestling coach of the decade for the 1950s, an honor extended to him by The Star-Ledger. At the close of the millennium, The Express-Times named him one of the extended Lehigh Valley area’s Top 100 Sports People of the Century.
Goles coached 39 individual state champions, 39 state second place wrestlers, and led The Blue Streaks to over 250 dual-meet victories. In addition to being recognized for such extraordinary success in competition, he also was respected by students and the community as a person who cared about everyone he taught in the classroom as well, whether or not the student was an athlete. He is remembered as a man who was fair and played no favorites.

He gained a pair of posthumous accolades in 2014. On March 1 of that year, before the Region One championship finals at Wallkill Valley High School in the Sussex County ski country, he was inducted into the Region One Hall of Fame. Until a reorganization in 2017, Region One consisted of schools from four Northwest Jersey counties.

In the fall of 2014, Goles was inducted into the Warren County Hall of Fame (WCHOF). Arranged by the Warren County Community College Foundation, the WCHOF welcomes nominations from the public each year and honors leaders and achievers from all walks of life. He, along with Ned Bolcar and Jim Ringo of Phillipsburg and Chot Morrison of Hackettstown is one of only four persons chosen to the Hall being known primarily for sports success. Without public spirited community service and testimony from persons they have helped and inspired, sports figures would not be chosen. It is perhaps the most significant of the many honors he was bestowed in his celebrated career and life.

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Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.