Sports

Sports & Recreation

Photo by Jason Bernstein

CHAMPS

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any of that stuff,” Mike Rusek said about the three previous sectional finals losses on its home turf. “So for John and I it’s been a weight on our shoulders, but the good thing about Harrison kids is that they’re very resilient and very forgetful.”

Unbothered by past heartbreak from those before them, this group of Blue Tide players were able to create their own championship pictures.

Spurred by Diego Flores Sanchez’s first half goal, Harrison won its first state sectional championship since 2016 with a 1-0 victory over Voorhees in the North 2, Group 2 final in Harrison on Saturday night.

“These kids just came out to play today,” said Rusek. “I think we had the best game of our year and it was the right time for it.”

“Voorhees came in strong, but we weren’t here to lose,” Flores Sanchez said. “We were here to win. We’re Harrison and we love to win.”

Harrison possessed the ball in the upper-third for most of the night, consistently swinging the ball in and around the 18.

After a few good opportunities failed to result in a goal, the Blue Tide broke through in the 15th minute when Fabrizio Sousa sent a cross from the right side into the box. The pass found Flores Sanchez, who from less than 10 yards out, sent a right-footed shot into the open net.

“I saw the ball coming to me. I touched it then banged it near post,” said Flores Sanchez about his ninth goal of the season. “It felt amazing. We felt that we could win this game and that gave us more confidence.”

Flores Sanchez’s goal proved to be enough, even against a team with the offensive firepower of Voorhees. Ismael Kone, who took over as the fulltime keeper at the start of the state tournament, made a huge save on German Burset Romero in the 20th minute.

“I was really confident because we’ve been working all year for this,” said Kone, who posted his second consecutive shutout of the state tournament. “We knew we had it, but we had to be dedicated to it. We had to put the work in and we’ve been practicing every day for it.”

After that scare, however, offensive chances were limited as seniors Augustin Nunez, Dylan Huseinovic and Deangelo Vargas were stellar on the backline as well as Gabriel Barreto-Reis and Andy Abarca, who helped out back there in key moments.

Their play in the back allowed Harrison to continue pushing players up to be a part of its possession-based attack and dictate the tempo for nearly the entirety of the second half.

Winning a sectional championship is the goal every year in Harrison, but for many, the expectation is to win a state championship. It’s a standard that is the byproduct of nearly a century of soccer success with 25 state championships.

The Blue Tide’s quest for a 26th title continues Wednesday, Nov. 9, when it hosts Ramsey in the Group 2 semifinals. A victory then means a trip to the state final Sunday, Nov. 13, at Franklin High School in Somerset.

“(Rusek) said that this group had to win the states because there’s so much talent here,” Kone said. “We knew we were going to go far. There was a lot of pressure, but we’ve handled it well (so far).”

Attention to winning that state championship and the upcoming match with Ramsey surely began on Sunday morning. But this particular Saturday night was about what this team had done, rather than what’s still to come.

Another team got to celebrate a sectional title with the Blue Tide sign.

But this time it wasn’t an unwelcome visitor, but rather it was Harrison adding to its championship legacy.

“I’m really proud of these kids,” Rusek said. “We had our difficulties this year, but these guys are fighters. They’ve been fighting through everything and I think it was the fighting that we did in September and October that led to our victories here in November. I really can’t say enough about this group.

“Every year you’re proud of your kids and you want to see the best for them. This group earned it, maybe more so than any group I’ve had.”

Mullen commits to Virginia Tech

By Jason Bernstein

jason@theobserver.com

Throughout Jimmy Mullen’s college recruiting process, there was always the lingering question of whether or not he would eventually have to make the difficult decision between football or wrestling as the sport he would compete in at the next level.

As fate would have it, Mullen won’t need to make a choice between the two any time soon.

Mullen, a Kearny native and two-sport star at St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale recently committed to wrestle and play football at Virginia Tech.

According to Mullen, Virginia Tech was one of three schools that offered him the opportunity to compete in both sports simultaneously, the others being Rutgers and Army.

“It definitely takes a lot of weight off of my shoulders knowing I don’t have to give up a sport that I’ve been doing since I was 5-years-old,” Mullen said. “They’ve both been a big part of my life and done so much for me.

“As long as I can remember my favorite sport was football during the football season and wrestling during wrestling season.”

That Mullen was able to make a college commitment of this magnitude comes as little surprise to those in Kearny that have known him the longest. Current Kearny High School head coach Tony Carratura Jr. started coaching Mullen on the recreation level when he was 10, but knew of the legend of Mullen well before then thanks to his late father, Tony Sr., who worked with him when he was 5.

“My dad would always come home and say ‘you gotta see Jimmy! You gotta see this kid!’ and he would get pretty jacked up about him,” Carratura Jr. said. “My dad would be ecstatic about it right now because he always said Jimmy was going to be something. He really saw something special in him the moment he started coaching him.”

Since those early days at the Lincoln Middle School gym practicing with fellow Kearny native and current Cornell University star Jacob Cardenas under the tutelage of the Carraturas and current Kearny assistant Brian McDonnell, Mullen has developed into one of the country’s premier wrestlers.

Mullen became the first freshman to ever win the NJSIAA State Wrestling Championship at 285 pounds in 2020 when he defeated Southern Regional’s J.T. Cornelius for the title.

As a sophomore, during the COVID-shortened season, Mullen elected to forego the state tournament in order to try out for a spot on Team USA in the Junior World Championships. Mullen made the team and won silver at the event in Budapest.

Last season, as a junior, he once again won a state title at 285, defeating Bergen Catholic’s Dom Brogna by pin in the final.

Mullen enters his senior season as the nation’s topranked high school heavyweight wrestler and No. 5 overall by Flo Wrestling. The site also has Mullen as its top overall wrestler in New Jersey.