Anthony Petrock has been the coach of the Ramsey boys wrestling program for 16 years. But his association with the girls program has been significantly shorter.
The team has been able to conduct duals for just three seasons and the program didn’t have its first girl wrestler until the 2021-22 season, when one of the team’s stat keepers, Reeve Faluova, expressed an interest in competing for her senior year.
But in that short time, the Rams have experienced a meteoric rise. From just three wrestlers that first season, one of whom was sophomore Paige Kirk, who would go on to be a two time state place winner, Ramsey has become one of the state’s top dual meet teams.
The Rams finished fourth at the inaugural New Jersey Girls Duals at Howell this past February and, remarkably, they did it in spite of having just 12 girls on the entire roster, which necessitated them forfeiting three weights. There was no match this season when Ramsey forfeited fewer than two weights.
There are no superstars in the current Ramsey lineup. In fact, there was not even a single state qualifier on the entire roster, as the Rams qualify through the brutally competitive North I Region.
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And yet, Ramsey took fourth at both the New Jersey Girls Duals and the Queen of the Hill Duals at Morris Hills and went 16-5 in dual meets, including wins over No. 3 Morris Hills 40-28 and No. 6 North Brunswick 36-33. By the end of the year, the Rams were ranked No. 5 in the NJ.com Top 10.
Through all of the adversity, and the grueling schedule filled with Northwest Jersey teams, the small, but competitive crew of wrestlers stuck to their winning formula to achieve success. That is why, Ramsey’s Anthony Petrock is the NJ.com Girls Wrestling Coach of the Year for 2024-25.
“I knew going in we were going to be very competitive,” Petrock said of his team. “We came off last season having wrestled Morris Hills, which is an established program, and with the exception of the two forfeits, we tied 30-30. Of course, they won the match 42-30, but we knew on the mat that we could compete. We also had a good dual with Vernon and we knew we were on the brink.”
The Rams graduated three seniors, including state finalist Kirk, and after returning the core group, Petrock was able to add some additional pieces to create this year’s squad.
For Petrock, while the sport looks the same, coaching the boys and girls teams are two entirely different endeavors. But he insists that he got maximum dedication from the girls on his roster.
“I find that coaching them is very different,” he said. “You have to treat each team as its own entity. The key to our (girls) success was attendance every day. If a girl missed a practice, it was maybe three times the entire year. So we were 12 for 12 from the start of the season to the end of February. They never missed practice. that’s big as a team.”
All the hard work paid off, as the girls worked out in the same room and followed the same rigorous practice schedule as the boys team. And when the New Jersey Girls Duals rolled around in mid-February, Petrock felt like his team was ready.
“Going into that, I felt we were really battle tested,” he said. “Throughout the year we were in the Queen of the Hill and our dual meet schedule was definitely a grind. But these girls were willing to buy into the team concept. They performed well and bought into competing for one another.
“They definitely understood the concept of, ‘I’ve got to get six, and if I can’t get it, I can’t get pinned.' Going in, they knew what their job was to match up with certain teams.”
There were some frustrating moments for Petrock and his girls this season, most notably when they lost two matches on criteria, due to the forfeits. One of those losses came early in the season to No. 10 PCIT, while the second time came in the third place match at the Queen of the Hill to No. 9 High Point. In both cases, Ramsey won six of the 10 bouts wrestled.
After muscling their way into the New Jersey girls wrestling elite this season, Petrock feels that his wrestlers have definitely raised the profile of the girls program.
“I feel like, in the school, we definitely created a buzz. And throughout the town,” Petrock said. “We hope to see a rise in numbers. We lose just one girl and return 11. If we can get six or seven new girls into the room, that would be great. But, we’re a small town and there’s only a certain number of athletes to pull from.”
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Michael Holcombe can be reached at [email protected]