By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher Mainland Regional junior Kolin Roberts came into the District 32 tournament as the No. 5 seed of 10 wrestlers in his bracket at 195 pounds. To say not much was expected of him is probably an understatement. He had lost to fourth-seeded Jose Quinones of Cedar Creek and No. 2 Amaury Ortiz of Atlantic City during the regular season, and only the most hardcore local wrestling fans probably even knew his name. Three weeks later, Roberts was standing on the mat at the NJSIAA state championships at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. He lost his first match on Friday night at states and was eliminated from that tournament, but his run to New Jersey wrestling’s hallowed ground won’t be forgotten anytime soon. Roberts rode one of the more impressive hot streaks in recent years through districts and regions to earn his place in Atlantic City. Not only did Roberts, who hadn’t had a .500 season his first two years of high school, win five of his eight postseason matches, he also knocked off two top seeds and a pair of No. 4 seeds to finish second at both the District 32 and Region 8 championships. He also notched a 34-10 record this season. Not bad for a guy who had lost his first two matches of the year by pin and major decision. 
Mainland Regional junior 195-pounder Kolin Roberts came out of nowhere as a No. 5 seed at districts and went on to finish second at districts and regions to punch his ticket to Atlantic City for the first time in his career. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) “At the beginning of the season, he started out 0-2. He got pinned and lost by major decision. He’s had sub-.500 seasons as a freshman and sophomore. But he got on this string. He picked it up at practice and just told himself he was going to start wrestling better. One win came, then two, then three, then four. He won at the Christmas tournament and kept going and going,” said Mainland coach Clayton Smith. “The mental game is what changed his whole wrestling career this season. He’s definitely grown a lot more mentally than what he has been in the past. He used to hang his head a lot. He’s still had his moments this year. But between the ears has grown so much this year.” “I just wanted to do better than I did last year, have a better season, have a better record and go farther than I did last year,” Roberts said. “Once I started winning a couple of matches and wrestling hard, and my coaches telling me I have to work hard. Once you get a couple of wins under your belt you do want to work harder and strive for more.” Heading into the District 32 tournament, Roberts said he was disappointed in his No. 5 seed. He understood, since Quinones and Ortiz had both beaten him during the regular season and Egg Harbor Township’s Connor Agostino was secure in the No. 1 seed, but what he felt as a sleight ultimately gave him the motivation he needed to go on an incredible postseason run. “I was a little upset. I lost to the Cedar Creek kid (Jose Quinones) and the Atlantic City kid (Amaury Ortiz). It was my fault that I lost, but I didn’t think I deserved that seed. But I went out and showed them that I didn’t deserve that seed,” Roberts said. “Knowing that I had to wrestle the kid I lost to (Quinones) in my first match was good because I could show him that I could beat him.” Smith said Roberts never would have had that kind of confidence during his first two years of high school. But as he has matured, Roberts has not only gained confidence on the mat, but also become a team leader and much more focused on his academics. “He’s doing very well this year with his academics, and that’s nice to hear that all his academics are under control. I haven’t heard anything about him in terms of discipline. You’re going to have a little ripple here and there because he’s a high school boy, but he’s not a discipline problem at all. He’s represented some of his younger teammates very well. When they would have a bad loss, he was the guy who could talk to them and get the wind back in their sails,” Smith said. “He’s always been vocal, and I always wondered if he was ever going to be able to (be a leader), but I never really counted on it. But it just kind of happened this year. He became that guy. When Justin Bishop took a bad loss against Washington Township early in the season, I’ve never seen Justin get that emotional. Two coaches walked to the locker room and Kolin came, too, and he just said, ‘I got it.’ He went in, and after a couple minutes Justin came out and was calmed down. “There’s been a few times when I’ve gone in (to the locker room) and just stayed behind the scenes and listened to him, and he’s done a good job with that. You can tell somebody to try to be that person, but unless they want to become that person, you can tell them all you want but they are just not going to do it.” Roberts, who also plays linebacker on the football team, is freakishly athletic, but also has had to work hard in order to be successful at sports. It’s been a challenge for him to harness all that athletic ability and turn it into results on the field or mat, Smith said. Roberts has tattoos on his forearms that read “Strength” and “Courage” and one emblazoned across his upper chest that reads “Only the strong survive.” They are reminders, he said, that he constantly has to keep working hard to get where he wants to be in life. 
Roberts was eliminated in the first round of states, but still put together a 34-10 record this season. “I got my first tattoo when I was 15. My mom doesn’t let me get tattoos unless they mean something, so I try to make sure they mean something to me,” Robert said. “The ones on my forearms, strength and courage, that’s what I try to live by. The one on my chest is ‘only the strong survive’ and that really defines me.” Roberts had to be mentally strong to make it to Atlantic City this year. He faced top-seeded Agostino in the semifinals at districts, then had to go through top-seeded George Duddy of Highland Regional during regions. He beat Agostino at districts, but Agostino returned the favor in the region final, winning 5-0. Smith said that was a turning point for Roberts. After falling in the district final, Roberts didn’t go to the podium to accept his second-place medal. Smith said he made it clear to Roberts that if he wanted to be a championship-caliber wrestler, he had to learn how to take the good with the bad. After losing to Agostino in the region final, Roberts swallowed his pride and made his way to the podium. “That’s huge. The mental game for Kolin was the key this season, and he’s constantly getting better and better with that,” Smith said. Roberts and Agostino will always be linked for the run they went on during this postseason. The met in the region final as the No. 9 and No. 10 seed, respectively, the two lowest seeded wrestlers to advance to the final in any weight class. “I don’t think he or Connor were really ready for it. They came in (to regions) as the ninth and 10th seeds. When he knocked the No. 1 seed off, I told him, ‘listen, you just beat the No. 1 seed. You’re not the No. 9 seed anymore, you’re No. 1. Now you are expected to win this.’ The next day he pinned the kid from Pennsville to get into the finals and he was ecstatic,” Smith said. “He had a championship in mind, but it’s very difficult to beat somebody twice. He had to beat Connor twice, and it was Connor’s turn. (EHT coach) Mike (Caiazza) and I spoke and we were saying that if those kids wrestled 10 times
, it’s five and five.” The pair ended up working out together in the week leading up to states. “He’s a good partner to wrestle with,” Roberts said of Agostino, a sophomore at EHT. “He has a good head on his shoulders, he made me work and I made him work. We both just wanted to get better.” “Kolin was no longer just a Mainland wrestler and Connor no longer just an EHT wrestler. They were Region 8 wrestlers. They were on the Region 8 team,” Smith said. “It was kind of neat, they walked in, shook hands, then started banging heads. They were having conversations, and that’s going to grow. You see that happen when you are in that group.” Roberts said he was surprised he made it as far as Atlantic City, but that only fuels his fire to get better next year as a senior and make a return trip to Boardwalk Hall. “It’s a shock. I didn’t think I was going to go this far, knowing how I did last year. I just wanted to do better,” Roberts said. “Working hard got me to where I am now. It’s a shocker to realize how far I have come. I just have to keep working hard in the offseason now. That’s how you get better.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]
Mainland Regional’s Kolin Roberts seized the moment in 2015 wrestling postseason
