The Alternative Press

SUMMIT, NJ - Area high schools wrestling teams wrapped up their regular season with a quad held Saturday at Summit High School.

Summit took on grapplers from Chatham High School, Orange High School and Pingry. Each school participated in three team matches. Summit had a strong showing, defeating all visiting schools. Summit and Chatham will participate in next weekend's District X tournament in Millburn, the first qualifier to advance to the eventual state championship tournament in Atlantic City the first weekend in March.

First round match-ups: Summit defeated Chatham 57-24 and Pingry defeated Orange 45-18.

Second  round match-ups: Summit defeated Orange 47-30 and Pingry defeated Chatham 39-31.

Third round match-ups: Chatham defeated Orange 28-27 and Summit defeated Pingry 42-36.

For host Summit, the three victories allowed them to finish the season with a winning team dual meet record in only the second varsity season since the wrestling program was revived at Summit High School. To achieve this goal, Summit had to win its final five matches of the season, which it did with wins over Dover and Holmdel earlier in the week and the three wins at the season-ending quad meet.

Summit's high school wrestling program is not funded by the school budget, and a group of community supporters of the sport raise the money for team expenses through contributions and fundraising by the Summit Wrestling Club.

The future looks bright for wrestling in Summit, with good levels of participation in youth wrestling programs and with a Summit Middle School team that won the team title at this season's Union County middle school wrestling tournament.

At the high school varsity level, Summit sophomore 126 pounder Nick Abbott was crowned Union County champion in January and sophomore AJ Iarussi was Union County runner-up at 195 pounds.

Editor's Note:  Special thanks to Jim Abbott for contributing to this article.