In Saturday's battle of the cats wrestling tri-meet, featuring the Bridgewater Raritan Panthers and the Cougars of both Cranford and Columbia, the home Cranford wrestlers put on a dominant performance. Cranford powered past the Panthers 51-24 and then steamrolled Columbia 71-0.

"The thing that impressed me the most today are the kids that have lesser experience on our team, coming out and showing that they've been putting in some work and improving their technique," said Cranford head coach Darren Torsone.

Cranford wrestled in the second and final matches of the day, with the first pitting Columbia and Bridgewater Raritan against each other, and the Panthers coming away with a convincing 60-5 win. But Cranford came out in the second match against the Panthers and immediately asserted itself as the top team at the meet.

"Maybe the other teams were a little bit younger this year and we have a senior- and junior-dominated team this year," Torsone said of his team's success at the meet. "That could be part of it, another part of it is that this is a good year for us."

Through the first three bouts against the Panthers, Cranford had not even given up a point, even through an escape. Consecutive pins by Brian Buentempo and Matt DiGiovanni coupled with a Panther forfeit had the Cougars up 21-0 before Bridgewater even scored its first takedown. At 152, J.P. Christiano scored a technical knockout, as did Connor Londregan at 145. After Chris Keim pinned Mike Muttie in 1:01 at 160, Cranford was up 37-0, and the Panthers never made the match close. At 119, Joe Giaccio earned a technical fall, and Eric Knight scored a minor decision for Cranford at 140.

Against a depleted Columbia team, which had to forfeit six weight classes because of inexperience, injuries and simply a lack of participants, Cranford did not let up. Even more remarkable than the 71-point shutout was the way the Cranford boys won. Columbia did not score a single offensive point in the match, with not a single successful takedown allowed by Cranford. Even further, only three of Columbia's wrestlers actually scored any points, all off of escapes. Every other bout resulted in either a pin or a forfeit.

"The first part is the recruitment process of getting kids out. We've had a lot of kids out, but quite frankly, a lot of kids don't want to wrestle because it's tough," said Columbia assistant coach Eugene Klein, who was filling in for head coach Harold Garwin, who was attending to personal matters. "Part of the problem is that we have a lot of kids who are green and also there are kids that are injured. We have two of our captains injured."

Columbia, which only scored five points in the opening match against the Panthers, looked to be having trouble in nearly every phase of the game. They weren't able to execute takedowns, they weren't able to prevent them and they had a lot of trouble escaping from the down position, which they found themselves in very often Saturday afternoon.

"Personally, I haven't been working as closely with the varsity as I should have. I've been working with the younger guys," Klein said. "We're not attacking like we should be, that's part of the problem, but also, these are two good wrestling clubs… Right now we have to focus on getting in shape, getting everybody healthy and working harder in the practice room."

Throughout the afternoon, Cranford flat out overpowered its opponents at nearly all of the weight classes. Torsone credited the school physical education class, which lets athletes lift weights at school for a grade. It certainly showed Saturday morning and afternoon.

"They lift every day in school as part of their gym class," Torsone said. "We have football players, wrestlers and other athletes sign up for that class."

The Columbia Cougars are 0-2 overall, while Cranford sits at 3-0. Columbia is in action again on Wednesday at West Essex High School.