VIDEO: Dangerous Lower Cape May further proves its mettle with convincing win over defending South Jersey champion Middle

Posted: January 13th 2026

Lower Cape May's Dom Marrero moves into position to pin Middle Township's Maddox Boyd at 150 pounds during Tuesday's high school wrestling match.

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE – There was no need for anyone to look up the criteria process to break ties in a high school wrestling match Tuesday evening.

About 11 months after losing to its biggest rival on criteria after a tie in the 2025 South Jersey Group II title match, Lower Cape May Regional further cemented its status as one of the best teams in the state with a convincing 58-12 victory over a very solid Middle Township team in front of perhaps the largest crowd to ever witness a wrestling match in the Panthers’ gymnasium.

The match featured two of South Jersey’s best small-school programs.

“They’re very good,” Middle coach Matt Wolf said bluntly. “We’re good and we work really hard. For them to beat us, especially like that, they have to be really good. Hats off to them. They have a great team right there.”

As has been the case throughout the season so far, Lower Cape May dominated the match at the lower weights. After the proceedings began with Middle’s Reed Milstead scoring a third-period pin at 106 pounds, Lower ripped off nine straight victories. All but one of them involved bonus points.

Lower’s Eli Glover (132), Chase Hansen (144), Dom Marrero (150) and Ashton Ray (165) each won by fall. The Tigers’ Bryce Paley (113), Ryan Morgan (120) and Danny Byrne (157) each recorded technical-fall results. Tristan Rosemeyer (113) won by 8-0 major decision. And also included in the run was an 8-5 decision by Gabe Tosto (150) in one of the evening’s most exciting bouts.

David Douglass (190) and Jake Hearon (Hwt.) later each won by fall for Lower.

“We’ve been training really hard, we’ve looked good at practice and we looked good (in a championship performance) at the Cinnaminson Duals last weekend,” Lower coach Billy Damiana said. “We wanted to eliminate all emotions. This is a new team, a new year. I know a lot of our guys probably felt some type of way because of what happened against them last year but this is a new year, a new team and a new season so we wanted to just keep moving forward.

“The big thing we talked about was controlling the emotions and staying positive. They’re teenagers and they’re going to make mistakes and they’re going to be emotional at times. We wanted to eliminate that as much as possible and take care of business and move forward. I’m happy we wrestled our match tonight.”

Lower, which entered this week ranked No. 17 in the state, improved to 11-0 in dual matches.

“We’re in a good spot right now,” Damiana said. “But we want to continue to grow and get better. We’re talking about pushing for a state title, not just a sectional. We have to stay focused, continue to trust the process and keep going.”

Other winners for Middle (3-3) included Noah Nagle (175) with a 2-1 decision and Robert Hodges (215) with a 7-3 decision.

“We have to get back to work,” Wolf said. “For us, this is less about (Lower), and more about things we need to improve on. Like Coach (LaMarr) Greer says with his (boys basketball) program here, you try to go up against good competition so you can find your problems now. Well, we found a couple problems tonight that we have to work on so we can fix them. We have to wrestle better, we have to coach better. We have things we need to improve over the next month. We were in a lot of those matches but there were some little things that caused them not to go our way. Those are the things we have to fix.”

The highly anticipated match drew hundreds of fans, who packed into Middle Township’s B gymnasium. Due to the size of the crowd, some were forced to sit on the floor or stand in the corners. The crowd reacted loudly to every takedown, reversal, near-fall situation and mat return.

“Once the National Anthem got done, you could really feel the energy in the gym,” Wolf said. “When I looked around, I thought about when I first started coaching 18 years ago, when it seemed like we couldn’t even get the kids’ parents to come to matches. I think a night like this is a credit to both schools. If you have one team that’s really good and the other is bad, no one cares. We were really looking forward to this. It was a great night for wrestling in our area but unfortunately for us it was a greater night for them tonight.”