By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
PISCATAWAY — Delsea Regional High seniors such as Jamar Dixon and Zavier Stokes might want to think about putting a bigger shelf up in their respective bedrooms to house the championship rings they keep winning.
On Sunday afternoon, the Crusaders were at it again, dominating a very good Brick Memorial team and winning, 45-30, to capture the program’s fourth straight Group 3 state championship at Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena.
The middle weight “hammers” of Greyson Pettit, Gage Summers, Stokes, Cameron Pote, Dixon and Riley Boos ripped off six straight wins to start the match, staking Delsea to a 33-0 lead and, for all intents and purposes, ending the match before the Mustangs picked up their first win with Malachi Saint-Vil’s 12-9 decision over Charles Six at 165 pounds. Pettit started things with a technical fall at 126 pounds and Summers, Stokes, Dixon and Boos all scored pins, while Pote earned a major decision at 144 pounds.
Brick Memorial ripped off five straight wins from 190 pounds to 113, but by then it was too late, and Amari Vann ended things emphatically with a second-period pin at 120 pounds.
“It means a lot,” said Dixon, a 150-pound four-year letter winner and three-time state place winner. “This is a goal I’ve had since my freshman year, to win all four. I saw we won it one time, why not four? It’s an amazing feeling. We’ve worked so hard this year, especially on our conditioning, and it all paid off for us here.”
Delsea improved to 21-2 under first-year head coach and longtime assistant Tom Maxwell, who took over this season for Greg Sawyer. The Crusaders’ only losses came against St. John Vianney at the Jack Welch Duals in mid-January, and a thrilling 35-34 setback against St. Augustine Prep in perhaps the Match of the Year in South Jersey. Since then, the Crusaders have won six straight matches, and they scored 50 or more points in all of those except the state championship.
“This is huge. It feels great, knowing how hard we’ve been working all year and it finally came down to this,” Stokes said. “We all had confidence because we’ve all been here before, so we were just grinding every day.”
Delsea’s other win came from Joel Anderson at 175 pounds, which gave the Crusaders a 39-3 lead. In all, Delsea won eight of the 14 weight classes and scored bonus points in all eight of them, where as the Mustangs only earned bonus points in four bouts, two of which were forfeits.
“We’re the same old Delsea. Our middle weights (were the difference),” Dixon said. “We have a lot of hammers in the middle weights and I think that’s what determined the match.”
Added Stokes, “we wear these Delsea colors with pride, we take it seriously, and we want to go out there and perform our best every time. Everyone had to take care of what they needed to. This is great, it feels like we’ve made history.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Individual wrestlers will begin preparations for the district tournaments.
