Of win streaks and life in Paulsboro, wrestling mecca

Paul Morina had been thinking about the moment for 10 years, really. Then, last week, it finally came.

Paulsboro High School, a gritty, hardscrabble place in Gloucester County with just 480 students, hadn't lost a wrestling match in the 11-team Colonial Conference in 37 years, not since 1971.

Until last week, when it lost in an away match to Collingswood, 28-22.

Morina, coach for 23 years and a Paulsboro wrestler who helped fuel the winning tradition in the 1970s, said his greatest fear was always that the streak would end because of a careless move - a wrestler caught on his back, for example - or because someone didn't make weight, or because of a screwup or bad decision by him.

He never worried about losing to a better team, he said. That he could live with.

Morina, 49, loves wrestling and his community. He grew up in Paulsboro. He's acting principal of the high school, a borough councilman, and he recently started a bimonthly newspaper because he wanted some good news written about his refinery town.

Morina's roots in Paulsboro go back to 1930, when his grandfather moved from Altoona, Pa., to work in the Mobil (now Valero) refinery. Morina went to college on a wrestling scholarship. A wrestler introduced him to his wife. His assistant coaches are his brother, cousin and best friends, all former Paulsboro wrestlers.

The coaches knew they were trustees of an incredible jewel, one that has given this town its identity, its pride.

Paulsboro has won more than 90 percent of its matches since the program started in 1939.

Jim Gentile, a junior on the team, is the grandson of a South Jersey champ and the son of a district champ. His great uncle was a state champ. That's how it's been in Paulsboro.

Morina, whose three sons are in grade school, threw pieces of wrestling mats into their playpens. His wife, Sandi, understood.

Paulsboro does lose occasionally. Morina's record is 454-24-4. But keeping the conference streak alive was every season's top priority.

The team graduated seven members last year, and Morina knew defeat in the conference was possible this year. His team was not only young - it began the season without any 12th graders - it was inexperienced.

There are 14 individual contests in a high school match, from 103 pounds to heavyweight. The Collingswood match on Jan. 16 came down to the night's final contest, and Paulsboro had to win big.

But in the last minute, Paulsboro's Mike Buckley, a 145-pound senior - who had joined the squad just a week earlier - was losing his match.

Buckley, whose father had been part of the streak, began wrestling in second grade, but he quit after his freshman year. He rejoined because he felt the team was struggling and "it was my obligation."

The 18-year-old got an early lead, but without conditioning he was still no match for his freshman opponent.

Morina prepared himself for the moment he had anticipated for so long. He told himself he needed to make sure he handled it with class, that his team did as well.

As the seconds ticked away, and Buckley lost, 6-4, "it was an empty feeling," Morina said, "a helpless feeling."

Morina felt he had let down everyone who had been part of the program and who took such pride in it.

But to his surprise, he said, he also felt enormous relief. He and his assistants no longer had to shoulder the weight of expectations. And it had been unfair to place responsibility for extending the streak on inexperienced wrestlers. Now they could all start fresh.

"There's a lot of pressure on these young kids," he said. "Some of them didn't realize what kind of pressure there was. They hadn't lived it for 30 years like we had."

The gym at Collingswood erupted, a euphoria that was well-deserved. Collingswood wrestled extremely well, and hadn't beaten Paulsboro in 40 years.

"Guys in the locker room, we were crying and stuff," said Paulsboro's Gentile, the third-generation wrestler. "It was a terrible feeling, with your dads and your uncles and stuff."

"At first, I was just stunned," said junior Eric Dunnet. "You don't realize how big a thing it is until you see how crazy Collingswood was acting. That's when I realized how big it is for them to beat us."

Dunnet also looked at the Paulsboro fans. "You see old men crying and ladies crying - over a sport, over a wrestling team - you realize what this town really is and what it meant to them," he said.

But the next day, said Dunnet, "I really thought about it, and it was really, like, 'Wow, there's not too many teams that have done something like this before.' "

He said the team didn't blame any one person. "It's not one kid's fault," he said.

Buckley, the final wrestler, had joked to friends the day of the match, "I know it's going to come down to me."

It was "heartbreaking" to see the streak end, he said, but he was "kind of happy" with his performance, considering he had no conditioning. Buckley has received "tons of encouragement" from the community. And, he said, there are big contests ahead - even a chance for a rematch.

"Coach Morina told me, 'You can't win forever,' " he said. "This day had to come, and it came. I'm not really worried about it."

After the match, the coaches, as usual, went to the Sons of Italy Lodge in Paulsboro.

They weren't as bummed out as they expected to be. They reminisced about the good times, the close calls over the years.

"The best part for me was [the streak] didn't come easy," said Nicky Morina, a cousin and assistant coach. "We went through a lot of battles and wars and sweating and scouting. The preparation was as much fun as the actual outcomes."

Dean Duca, Paulsboro's top assistant, said the loss does not mean the demise of Paulsboro wrestling. He helps run the midget program, which includes his two sons.

"These little guys we got, they're going to be tough," he said.

The next day, Paul Morina posted a new sign in the wrestling room: "Today is the Start of a New Streak."

But Saturday, Paulsboro lost again, thumped by Haddonfield, 43-27.

Haddonfield won three contests in the last 10 seconds - the kind of contests Paulsboro has long been known for winning - a sure sign of Haddonfield's emergence.

"I loved their streak," said Haddonfield coach Chuck Klaus, who said Paulsboro has long been the model for other teams. "By beating them, we're not that type of program, but we're really a step closer."

After 307 consecutive conference wins, Paulsboro lost two in a row.

But later on Saturday, Paulsboro wrestled Haddon Heights, another conference team, and won 68-6.

Tom Curl, whose older son is a former Paulsboro state champion, and whose younger son is a freshman heavyweight on the team, looked at the scoreboard.

"We're on a new streak," he said. "We're 1-0."

Paulsboro still has one streak intact. It has won 25 straight state titles among New Jersey's small schools. But this year that honor could well go to Collingswood, Haddonfield or a couple of other excellent teams, Schalick, in Pittsgrove, and Penns Grove.

Morina will use the recent defeats as motivation.

As he told his kids in the wrestling room this week, "You win the state championship, people will say that's character. . . . People are counting us out. But you guys can do it."