When your team is a reigning state finalist, obstacles are inevitable on the hike back to New Jersey’s summit.
After winning a program-record 21 dual matches and reaching the Group 5 state championship for the first time ever in school history, success at the pinnacle of high school wrestling in the Garden State has continued to be an expectation for the Bridgewater-Raritan High School wrestling team in 2025-26.
That is especially true after the Panthers sent four wrestlers to the state individual tournament at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City to cap off last year: the most under now fifth-year head coach and Bridgewater-Raritan Class of 2016 graduate Kyle Murphy.
While the Panthers found themselves comfortably on pace to shatter that aforementioned mark of 21 team victories early, when you have a target on your back as a heavy favorite to repeat as state sectional champions, roadblocks are bound to happen at some point.
For Bridgewater-Raritan, this was not just because of a Murderer’s Row stretch of its schedule with four straight losses over the last two weeks, plus a stacked slate of individual performances within this year’s Somerset County Wrestling Tournament brackets in between.
In a high-contact sport like wrestling where injuries occur more often than average, the injury bug has unfortunately impacted Bridgewater-Raritan.
“We have several guys out from the top to the bottom of our lineup,” revealed Murphy about his missing wrestlers from Saturday morning, including now two-time Somerset County Tournament champion and junior Trent Levash. “We’ve had injuries throughout the season and have been banged up in some really hard spots. For maybe my first time since I’ve been the head coach, we’ve even had to forfeit some weights at counties. But what is so special is we had over 70 kids try out for the sport, and I would say half of those kids are brand new to the sport. Some of these guys are going to get thrown into our lineup, because this is what we have at this point.”
“It’s about seeing them grow on the spot, getting that varsity experience, and hopefully helping them know they can know what to expect and be in those moments in the years to come.”
Levash did not wrestle this past week after repeating as Somerset County Tournament champion at 215 pounds for Bridgewater-Raritan, which finished fourth place as a team (116.5 points) last Saturday behind Manville High School (175 points), Ridge High School (185.6 points), and newly crowned county champion Immaculata High School (221.5 points).
The Panthers’ remaining county placers were all active on Saturday morning, including county finalists in senior Andrew Adell (113) and junior Matthew McCann (165). Junior Carmine Vella (157) earned a bronze medal, while freshman Lucas Churpakovich (126) rounded off Bridgewater-Raritan’s five podium spots with a fourth-place finish.
But thanks to the Panthers’ hot start to the 2025-26 season, their goals are still within reach – even despite untimely absences of some key wrestlers in their lineup.
In the short term, as the wrestling season never stops, the Panthers’ objectives are preparing its next men up and righting the ship towards their long-term goals, especially if they are set up to return to full strength when it matters most from the second half of February onwards.
Bridgewater-Raritan took a big step in checking off both of these short-term boxes after its quad match featuring Bridgewater-Raritan High School, Emerson High School / Park Ridge High School, New Providence High School, and Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan on Saturday morning.
While Bridgewater-Raritan (11-6) opened the day with a 71-12 rout of New Providence to squash its four-match losing streak, the Panthers suffered a crushing 39-32 defeat after Emerson / Park Ridge (10-3) rallied with a pair of late pins to steal the second match. But with Northern Valley Old Tappan (5-7) on the verge of taking a two-bout lead at the halfway point of match three to close out the day, senior Gabe Medina-Coello (285) secured a late go-ahead takedown before winning his key bout by decision at the final match’s halfway point.
This propelled the Panthers to a subsequent burst of four straight pins to cap off 27 straight points by Bridgewater-Raritan, which ended its day with a 45-27 victory over Northern Valley Old Tappan Saturday, January 24, at Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium in Bridgewater.
“With Gabe, it’s always been an outstanding day when I congratulate him on being 3-0 [in his three bouts on the day], especially with the tough year he has had so far being injured, getting back, and being our solid guy for us,” Murphy praised of the performance of Medina-Coello, who surged onto the scoreboard with a go-ahead takedown and a near fall in the final 15 seconds against Northern Valley Old Tappan senior Matthew Kim to win by 7-1 decision. “It’s just about getting Gabe to believe how good he can really be, and I know he does it in the wrestling room. He trains just as hard as the rest of the kids, heavyweight or not, and he deserves the chance to go out there and win. Our coaching staff believes in him and we know he is capable, but today he showed it.”
“It just took a little longer in that last match to get him to believe and know that he can win for his team.”
In addition to Medina-Coello, senior captains Andrew Adell (113) and Lucas Pelc (120) also finished with a perfect 3-0 bout record amongst Bridgewater-Raritan’s wrestlers who participated in all three of the day’s matches.
“It’s just so important to build confidence,” Pelc shared after the conclusion of Bridgewater-Raritan’s quad match. “Even in the small matches, you can practice your pre-match routine when you go out there, and it just feels better and better as you keep wrestling.”
“But you have to feel this for every single match.”
Advice that is of great importance in a quad: three consecutive matches in one day for each of the four schools in attendance, and a format that serves as key middle ground between a typical dual match and a day-long slate of individual tournament brackets for each weight class.
Against New Providence, only four of Bridgewater-Raritan’s 14 bouts extended beyond the first period on the way to its big 71-12 victory over New Providence. After an entertaining 15-6 victory for the Bridgewater-Raritan girls’ wrestling team over Emerson / Park Ridge that followed, the Panthers carried this momentum into their second match on the boys’ side against Emerson / Park Ridge.
Even though the Panthers ultimately were defeated, this proved to be the most thrilling boys’ match amongst all four schools in attendance on Saturday morning.
Five bouts in, both teams found themselves deadlocked at 12-12 before Chase Monahan (190) won by fall and Damien Gonzalez (215) halted a late comeback bid by Bridgewater-Raritan freshman Payton DiFelice to hold on for a key 7-5 decision.
Although it was just the third bout all day for Bridgewater-Raritan to go the full six minutes, all three of these results went in favor of Emerson / Park Ridge, which took a 21-12 at the halfway point.
Medina-Coello (285) then needed just 10 seconds to collect a six-point pin for Bridgewater-Raritan, which sent freshman Hunter Karp (106) to the mat for a key bout against Jake Falkenstern. While Karp took the lead heading into the third period, Falkenstern completely flipped the result with a pin at the 4:19 mark: a big nine-point swing that extended the visitors’ lead to 27-18. Adell (113), Pelc (120), and Churpakovich (126) then rallied Bridgewater-Raritan to a 32-27 lead with a technical fall (five points), pin (six points), and decision (three points), respectively, to put the Panthers in position for a comeback victory.
Junior Michael Garcia (132) then took a three-point lead after one period against Emerson / Park Ridge’s Triston Festa, who then tallied the go-ahead pin in 5:34 to set up a winner-take-all finale at 138 pounds. With the visitors up 33-32, Triston Festa sealed his team’s 39-32 victory with a win by fall in 1:49 over junior Eli Barnwell (138), which denied Bridgewater-Raritan a bid at a potential sweep of the day.
But with one more match still on the docket, the Panthers immediately had to turn the page and focus its attention on Northern Valley Old Tappan.
“We were all kind of down, but we all had to get our spirits up,” Pelc went on to say of how his team bounced back immediately after its crushing match two loss. “As a captain, I feel it’s my responsibility to help do that. Sometimes, I’m a little too chill, but I love cheering for people and giving them advice.”
“When one person wins and everyone gives their best effort, you just keep going, and it feels really good.”
Thanks to a pair of early pins by Vella (165) and McCann (175), Bridgewater-Raritan again found itself deadlocked early, 12-12, after five bouts against Northern Valley Old Tappan. The Golden Knights then saw Matthew Morrissey give his team a six-point lead after delivering a pin at 215 pounds to bring up Medina-Coello, who then found himself in a scoreless tie against Kim after one period of the heavyweight bout.
Kim then struck first with a second-period escape to take a 1-0 lead into the third period, and he appeared to be in position to hold on with this result.
With 15 seconds remaining, Medina-Coello snagged the go-ahead takedown and punctuated his miraculous 7-1 win by decision with a near fall, and this six-point swing for Bridgewater-Raritan trimmed Northern Valley Old Tappan’s deficit to 18-15.
The resulting momentum burst, however, was even more critical for the Panthers.
Karp (106), Adell (113), Pelc (120), and Churpakovich (126) rattled off four straight pins to mathematically seal the match for Bridgewater-Raritan, which closed out the quad on the strongest of notes when sophomore Marcus Puorro (144) tallied a pin in 2:34 to cap off the Panthers’ 45-27 victory.
“When practicing and competing in matches during my first years, I was thinking a lot about my matches and worrying about the results,” Pelc shared about his journey from a first-time varsity wrestler four years ago to serving as a captain in his senior year. “I wouldn’t practice the best I could, but in my fourth year, I realized that practicing in wrestling like it’s a match is important. You also need to get your mindset in place, like doing affirmations, and I started meditating, which helped a lot with all of the mental stuff. I never realized how much that was holding me back. This year, I developed all of the leadership skills in the practice room.”
“It all comes together when I go out onto the mat.”
Most importantly, the Panthers closed out their busy day with a victory, especially in the midst of a brutal mid-January slate just like last year.
After Bridgewater-Raritan exploded out of the gate with a 9-1 start to the 2025-26 season, the Panthers fell by just nine points each in back-to-back matches against Clearview Regional High School and Cedar Grove High School in a home tri-match Saturday, January 10. On Wednesday, January 14, Bridgewater-Raritan then ran into a buzzsaw at home in up-and-coming crosstown rival Immaculata, which handed the Panthers a 55-24 defeat before then winning the Somerset County Tournament team title just three days later, Saturday, January 17, at Hillsborough High School in Hillsborough.
That loss was Bridgewater-Raritan’s largest margin of defeat so far this season and its largest as a team since falling in last season’s Group 5 state finals, 58-18, to New Jersey’s top-ranked public high school in Southern Regional High School.
But in what has been a tough-as-ever Skyland Conference, no team will feel sorry for each other, even when they encounter other rivals on any form of a streak – positive or negative.
Reigning Group 4 state champion North Hunterdon Regional High School then defeated Bridgewater-Raritan, 42-28, on Wednesday, January 21, in Annadale before the Panthers returned home and bounced back with victories in two of their three matches on Saturday morning.
“We’re all getting a bit beaten up,” Pelc revealed about the injuries amongst his team. “That’s pretty much every wrestler at this point. As the season has gone on, we’re at that point where we feel like we are plateauing our skills.”
“But now is especially when we have to all pick it up, give it our best effort, and push each other.”
While the Panthers now have an 11-6 record following nine victories in 10 matches to start the season, there are some positives Bridgewater-Raritan can take away from its toughest stretch of the season.
For what it’s worth, last season’s 36-30 loss to North Hunterdon dropped Bridgewater-Raritan to 8-6 exactly one year ago. The following day, Bridgewater-Raritan also took two of three matches in its ensuing home quad to end the day with a record of 10-7.
The Panthers did not lose a team match again until the Group 5 state finals against Southern Regional High School, which snapped what turned out to be an 11-match winning streak for Bridgewater-Raritan.
This concluded the Panthers’ historic team portion of the season with a school-best 21-8 record.
Even factoring in the injuries it has faced at this point in 2025-26, over the course of what has been an excellent job by Murphy and his coaching staff, Bridgewater-Raritan is now 11-6 as a team with a firm grasp on the No. 1 spot in the NJSIAA North New Jersey, Section 2, Group 5, Tournament field. In other words, should this hold after the team tournament cutoff date of Saturday, February 7, this would again give the Panthers home-mat advantage in their bid to repeat as state sectional champion..
Bridgewater-Raritan was the No. 1 seed in last season’s North 2, Group 5, state sectional playoffs, which was capped off by a 57-13 rout of Bayonne High School at Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium to give the Panthers their first state sectional championship since 2016: Murphy’s senior year as a wrestler for Bridgewater-Raritan High School.
Bayonne is currently No. 2 only behind the Panthers in the aforementioned Power Points rankings, which will be used to seed the state team tournament after all matches across New Jersey are contested on Saturday, February 7.
Given Bridgewater-Raritan’s top-seeded football team defeated Bayonne, 21-14, at home back on November 14 to win its first sectional championship ever, perhaps a future script may be in progress for the Panthers and Bees to meet again in the winter with another trophy at stake.
Through the state’s overall Group 5 Power Points standings on January 24, this year’s Group 5 favorite and three-time reigning state champion Southern has the most Power Points in the entire Group 5 field. Because Bridgewater-Raritan currently has more Power Points than everyone in the North 1, Group 5 section, this alone would help the Panthers avoid the Rams in the state team tournament until a potential state finals rematch if both teams return to Rutgers University Sunday, February 22.
That would especially be huge given those on the Panthers’ roster who are injured will continue to have plenty of time to heal in the long run for when their services are needed the most.
Including New Jersey’s coveted individual state tournament to close out February, which will begin the weekend immediately after the conclusion of the team state championships.
Remarkably, although it may take a similarly deep state team tournament run as last year to do so, Bridgewater-Raritan still is in contention to match or even exceed last season’s school record of 21 victories despite the adversity it has faced.
But if there is any squad capable of doing this, Bridgewater-Raritan certainly can if it stays the course.
“Our goals are to build confidence so that we can wrestle matches the best we can consistently every single time,” concluded Pelc about what will be at stake at both the team and individual levels of the regular season’s home stretch.
“And also, to place in states.”
Next up for Bridgewater-Raritan (11-6) to close out arguably its toughest stretch of the regular season will be reigning Group 4 state runner-up Phillipsburg High School (6-4), which is ranked No. 17 in New Jersey, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, January 28, at Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium in Bridgewater. The Panthers will then close out the first month of the New Year with a trip to Bernards High School (2-6) at 7 p.m. Friday, January 30, in Bernardsville.
Bridgewater-Raritan will then serve as host to Youth Night against Hillsborough High School (4-11) at 6 p.m. Friday, February 6, in Bridgewater.
Bridgewater-Raritan’s results in its quad match Saturday morning were as follows below, with bouts going in order from top to bottom, and bolded wrestlers being the Panthers’ wrestlers. Including its 39-32 victory over the Panthers, Emerson / Park Ridge swept the day with victories of 57-24 and 64-15 over Northern Valley Old Tappan and New Providence, respectively.
Old Tappan also won over New Providence, 71-12, to round out the day’s results at Vaughn Stapleton Gymnasium.
Below are the match results; the class year is included before the name of each Bridgewater-Raritan wrestler
Bridgewater-Raritan (71) vs. New Providence (12)
(138) junior Eli Barnwell def. Thomas Monroe, technical fall (17-0), 2:28
(144) sophomore Marcus Puorro win by forfeit
(150) Braedan Valley def. senior Christopher Castro, pin, 4:44
(157) sophomore Jacob Bogdan def. Ali Ayvedi, pin, 3:49
(165) junior Carmine Vella win by forfeit
(175) senior Farel Cespedes win by forfeit
(190) senior Dylan Quintana win by forfeit
(215) Hunter Reilly def. freshman Payton DiFelice, pin, 0:58
(285) senior Gabe Medina-Coello def. Alexander Arnold, pin, 1:00
(106) freshman Hunter Karp win by forfeit
(113) senior Andrew Adell win by forfeit
(120) freshman Conner Paschall win by forfeit
(126) senior Lucas Pelc win by forfeit
(132) junior Michael Garcia def. Michael Zambrotta, pin, 3:24
Bridgewater-Raritan (32) vs. Emerson / Park Ridge (39)
(144) Nate Shannon def. sophomore Marcus Puorro, pin, 1:02
(150) sophomore Douglas Hesse def. Justin Jaramillo, pin, 1:26
(157) Devin Deubel def. sophomore Jacob Bogdan, decision (15-8)
(165) junior Matthew McCann def. Jace O’Donovan, pin, 2:30
(175) Nicholas Giella def. senior Farel Cespedes, decision (11-5)
(190) Chase Monahan def. senior Dylan Quintana, pin, 1:56
(215) Damian Gonzalez def. freshman Payton DiFelice, decision (7-5)
(285) senior Gabe Medina-Coello def. Marcos Garcia, pin, 0:10
(106) Jake Falkenstern def. freshman Hunter Karp, pin, 4:19
(113) senior Andrew Adell def. Evan Constante, technical fall (15-0), 4:17
(120) senior Lucas Pelc def. Joseph Dimotta, pin, 1:36
(126) freshman Lucas Churpakovich def. Tony Rinkiewicz, decision (6-3)
(132) Triston Festa def. junior Michael Garcia, pin, 5:34
(138) Jackson Shannon def. junior Eli Barnwell, pin, 1:49
Bridgewater-Raritan (45) vs. Northern Valley Old Tappan (27)
(150) Joseph Lee def. senior Christopher Castro, decision (12-5)
(157) Reilly McNamara def. sophomore Jacob Bogdan, major decision (20-9)
(165) junior Carmine Vella def. Michael Velazquez, pin, 1:41
(175) junior Matthew McCann def. Jaxson Weaver, pin, 1:51
(190) John Bilali def. senior Farel Cespedes, technical fall (15-0), 4:16
(215) Matthew Morrissey def. freshman Payton DiFelice, pin, 0:52
(285) senior Gabe Medina-Coello def. Matthew Kim, decision (7-1)
(106) freshman Hunter Karp def. Mateo Quinteros, pin, 0:45
(113) senior Andrew Adell def. Andy Osorio, pin, 1:26
(120) senior Lucas Pelc def William Tang, pin, 1:28
(126) freshman Lucas Churpakovich def. Leo DeCandia, pin, 4:20
(132) Elias Reyes def. junior Michael Garcia, decision (15-13)
(138) Dylan Macaluso def. junior Eli Barnwell, pin, 1:08
(144) sophomore Marcus Puorro def. Sal Tropea, pin, 2:34