By Andy Loigu

If the Hackettstown wrestling team felt embarrassed by their 79-0 loss to Warren Hills this winter, it may be of some consolation for them to see that the Blue Streaks emulsified their quarterfinal and semifinal opponents in the North Jersey Section 2 Group 3 playoffs by scores of 77-0 over Rahway and 63-3 over Mendham.

The Blue Streaks won 27 of the 28 bouts in their two matches over the weekend.

By virtue of being the first seed, the Warren Hills Blue Streaks will host West Essex in the section final at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 9.

With a 16-3 overall record and the Skyland Conference Valley Division championship in hand, Warren Hills has high hopes of reaching the Group Three final this year.

Against Mendham, a quality program, the Blue Streaks won six bouts by pins and two by 16-0 tech falls (wrestling’s version of the mercy rule).

Winners by pin were: Josh Lee at 120 pounds in 1:11, Shawn Redfield at 126 pounds in 4:11, Max Pagano at 132 pounds in 43 seconds, Jared Lee at 144 pounds in 1:56, Owen Frizzell at 175 pounds in 34 seconds, and Jarett Pantuso at 215 pounds in 3:06.

Winners by tech fall were Charlie Piccione (106 pounds) and 190 pounder Ryan Galka. Wins by decision went to Kevin Riedinger at 113, 138 pounder Ryan Lundy, 165 pounder Steve Malia and heavyweight Tyler McCatharn.

ON THE ICE

Coach Ryan Tatarka’s three-school co-op ice hockey team from Mount Olive, Hopatcong and Hackettstown calls itself three schools with one common goal. The team christened MOHOHA finished a 15-3-3 regular season (8-0-2 in the Haas Division) with a 5-1 win over a Gill-St. Bernards team which has a winning record. Tatarka’s troops start the Haas Cup playoffs against the yet to be determined fourth seed at 5:45 p.m. at Morristown’s Mennen Arena on Wednesday.

MOHOHA outshot Gill-St. Bernards 35 to 23 and won with solid goaltending.  Nick Gargiulo stopped all 11 shots he faced and Zach Bahammou turned away 11 of 12 shots.

Nick Cioce scored 45 seconds into the contest. He also had an assist in the game. Captain Frank DiLoreto also registered a goal and an assist. Finishing strong, MOHOHA  got third period goals from freshman Liam Parr and AJ Twist with an empty-net score from Ethan Tillery putting the finishing touch on the game. 

SUPER BOWL PICKS

A topic of conversation among sports fans every year come February is the Super Bowl and who will win it.

Veteran Hackettstown trainer Kurt Kaiser went on record stating “the Bengals break their drought and win 21-14.” Boomer Esiason would be happy to see that happen.

Tatarka picks the Rams to win 27-21.

Former Star-Gazette Sports Editor Dan Hirshberg feels that the Rams have got it made, and win by two touchdowns, 28-14.

As for yours truly, I will follow the rule I’ve used in making picks on high school games through the years, when in doubt, pick the home team. Since the game is in LA, I’m going with the Rams by a field goal, 24-21. It’s been my observation that the referees, simply being human, tend to give the close calls to the home team.

I forecast over 75 percent of the games correctly when I made picks in the Warren Reporter back in the day, but pro games are much harder to pick than high school games. There were seasons when I could just pick Phillipsburg to win each week and pick North Warren to lose, and there was my great percentage right there.

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Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.