For the first time ever, the NJIC Wrestling Championship will have a new winner. Manchester Regional will be one of those two teams fighting for that throne atop the conference next week, although the Falcons always remember where they came from. Most of the seniors on the roster picked up wrestling when they were freshmen, and others started only a year or two ago.
You wouldn’t know that by the year the Falcons are having at 10-2 and as division champions for the first time in 41 seasons, but that’s the reality for the small school in Haledon. In Wednesday’s NJIC semifinals on their home mat, experience meant squat as Manchester Regional took down the league’s kings in Emerson-Park Ridge in 41-34 fashion. 1/29 - 6:00 PM Wrestling Final Emerson Boro 34 Manchester Regional 41 The team’s small crowd of parents cheered for all of Passaic County to hear, the kids chest bumped, the coaching shared hugs, and Frank Sinatra blasted from the gym’s loudspeakers.
Manchester Regional had perhaps its biggest night of wrestling in decades. “This is our Super Bowl,” Manchester Regional head coach David Heitman said. Heitman spent 13 years at Northern Highlands and was at Mahwah for six years.
When he took over the program in 2019, the Falcons were a black hole in N.J. wrestling and had won one of their last 27 matches.
He had never coached in the conference, so he had no idea how dominant Emerson-Park Ridge had been coming into Wednesday’s match. The Cavos have won their d.
