Look at this snapshot of Noah Berlin-Langston’s wrestling career at Highland Park.
As a sophomore first-year wrestler: He finished 5-18, went winless in tournaments and said, “I honestly didn’t like wrestling. … Honestly, some days I would cry. I hated it so much.”
Fast forward to his senior year: He’s currently 37-2 and captured a Region 5 title this past weekend to qualify for the state tournament. Oh, and his current take on the sport?
“I’m definitely enjoying it right now,” he said after a smile. “It’s a lot of fun.”
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What makes his story even better is that Group 1 Highland Park isn't known as a mat power and sits as the state’s 23rd-lowest enrolled public high school with a wrestling team. The Owls didn’t even field a squad in the spring-shortened 2021 season when the administration axed the team because of COVID-19 safety concerns.
Saturday, Berlin-Langston stood among standouts from St. Peter’s Prep (No. 3 team in state), Rumson-Fair Haven (No. 1 public school team in state) and St. Joseph Metuchen (No. 1 team in Middlesex County).
After he got a sudden, surprise pin in the final, he leaped into his coach Craig Girvan's arms, who must be strong himself by catching the wide 215-pounder, and yelled out a yelp.
Score one for the little (big) guy.
“There’s no place in the world I’d rather be at,” Berlin-Langston said. “I’m so proud to be an Owl. It’s the best thing ever. I love it.”
So, just how did Berlin-Langston make his rise?
'Growth mindset'
Before wrestling, he trained in Olympic weightlifting. A coach, Michael McKenna who has a gym in Highland Park, was a wrestler and suggested the sport.
“He just kind of put me on to it,” Berlin-Langston said earlier in the season. “He told me it’s the greatest sport in the world. I’m like, if a weightlifting coach is saying wrestling is the greatest sport in the world, it has to be kind of something special.”
So, Berlin-Langston gave it a try. He had the strength base but needed to learn, well, everything. The moves, rules and, he noted, “I couldn’t even, like, hold a stance.”
He said “getting your butt kicked every day” wasn’t fun and he thought about quitting. He kept, however, coming back to the room.
“It’s going to sound kind of corny, but it was like I just put so much work in I was like, I’m not going to make my whole experience a wasted time,” he said. “If I’m going to do this, I might as well try and be as good as I can be at it.”
Enter heading to club practices and offseason tournaments.
Berlin-Langston said his rise could be attributed to having “a growth mindset.” Simply, learning how to fail, seeing where you’re weak and constantly making adjustments.
“He’s very determined,” Girvan said. “He completely dedicated his life to getting better at wrestling and he’s worked extremely hard. It’s great. It’s great for our program. It’s great for everybody to see that hard work pays off.”
From five wins to Region 5 champ.
“That’s fantastic," Girvan said. "That’s quite a transformation.”
'Bracket of sunshine and rainbows'
After a while, Berlin-Langston saw level jumps at practice and made a huge leap as a junior, going 33-4. He went 1-2 in the region with a brutal path. He took second in the district (losing to Rumson-Fair Haven’s Hunter Skove, the state runner-up) and to state champion Vincent Lee (Delbarton) in the region quarterfinal.
He plans to wrestle at Stevens Institute of Technology next year, but first, he had a goal this season of reaching the state tournament.
At Saturday’s region, the third-seeded Berlin-Langston knew he had a tad more fortunate draw than last year with Rumson Fair-Haven’s Conor Delaney (32-1), who finished top 12 in the state last year, not entered.
Then, he avoided the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds who each got upset in the quarterfinals.
“Coming into this we were kind of calling it ‘the bracket of sunshine and rainbows,’” Berlin-Langston said. “Because we’re supposed to have the third-best guy in the state in our bracket (Delaney) and then he’s out with mono. And then, people are just getting upset left and right. The one seed is losing to the 14th seed. It was pretty crazy from the start but I kind of just trusted in my training and took it a match at a time.”
It just seemed like there were no dark clouds above Berlin-Langston all weekend. He opened with a bye and won 12-1 in the quarterfinals, sidestepping the upset bug. In the semis, he met Matawan’s No. 7-seeded Metin Metioglu, who took out the No. 2 seed. The Highland Park star eked out a 2-0 win.
At the end of the rainbow was a finals meeting against Old Bridge’s fourth-seeded Zach Florio in a rematch of the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament final won 7-2 by Berlin-Langston on Jan. 25.
Berlin-Langston noted he felt that Florio game-planned to counter his underhook but it didn’t work as he used his speed. Then in the second period, Berlin-Langston rode his opponent and Florio went to his back for a moment on a roll and Berlin-Langston seized on it for the fall at 2:59.
“At the end, he didn’t clear his leg on that Granby and I caught him and put him on his shoulders,” Berlin-Langston said. “I’ve had that happen with a few guys where they kind of just roll over their head and get pinned really quick. I mean, that’s a hard position to wrestle out of.
“I couldn’t believe I pinned him in the finals. I thought I was just going to go out there, do my thing, score a lot of points and get my hand raised but I did not expect to pin him. That was great.”
Berlin-Langston stood up and faced the crowd with both arms stretched out, letting out a yell before turning around to head to the corner and hug his coach.
“It’s great to celebrate our victory,” Girvan said. “It’s just awesome.”
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