After junior Demir Radoncic pinned his opponent at 215, the majority of the crowd at Fort Lee High School erupted.  

Because of Radoncic, the Bridgemen held their first lead of the night going into the final match of the evening.  

Unfortunately for the Bridgemen, the lead was only short lived as Westwood’s Nick Palatta pinned Fort Lee sophomore Kevin Sabaci in 31 seconds to win the overall match for the Cardinals.

“We knew we needed more than four points to get the victory there and our big guy came through for us in the clutch,” said Westwood head coach Paul Castalini. “[Palatta] led us down a bit last week and I think he had it in his head that he had to come through and make up for the errors of last week.”

Westwood started with back-to-back pins at 103 and 112 for the early advantage, as Fort Lee was unable to secure the lead in the lightweights.

“The lightweights are our weak spot,” said senior Anatoliy Alkazov. “I’ve seen them grow better and they are going to keep on getting better. I see good things for them in the future.”

Then Fort Lee inched closer with a pin by senior Jose Granados at 119, but Westwood built the lead back up with a pin of their own from Craig Carmaliani at 125.

Down by 12, the Bridgemen rallied again, as juniors Justin Rhee and Andrew Lee won back-to-back matches by a total of three combined points. Lee was able to come back after trailing to earn a last-second point and the decision.

“That was a big match for Andrew Lee,” said teammate Demir Radoncic. “He definitely came back….he brought us closer to victory.”

Ahead 18-12, Westwood was on the verge of losing the lead to Fort Lee, but the Cardinals rebuilt the lead back up to 14 during the middleweight matches.

Fort Lee coach Alex Almeyda has often said that his heavyweight wrestlers are the strength of this Bridgemen team, and those student athletes brought Fort Lee back again.

Similar to what happened in the match against Dumont on Monday, one class to the next was won by Fort Lee.

Fort Lee’s Thomas Tantillo won by forfeit at 171 and Demir Radoncic pinned Gus Molina to turn the Bridgemen deficit into a 36-32 advantage.

“He is very smooth at taking guys down,” said Anatoliy Alkazov. “We were excited and we thought that we had it.”

Radoncic ran back to the bench to pump up Sabaci for his heavyweight fight, but the sophomore was pinned in the final match as Westwood came back for the win.

“It shouldn’t have been down to Sabaci in the last match like Dumont,” Radoncic said. “Poor kid always tries his hardest.”

“It’s nice having a county medalist at heavyweight that you can count on,” said coach Castalini. “It’s a good team and a good tight knit group here. It’s always a brawl when we come here and wrestle under the lights. It’s quite the experience.”

Despite losing by a pair of points, coach Almeyda was very pleased with the way his team played.

“They’re coming along,” he said. “We’re improving every week and that is all you could ask for. If we wrestled them four weeks ago, we would have lost by 40. It’s all about getting confidence.”

Westwood has a match Saturday morning at 10 a.m. against Demarest and Tenafly, while Fort Lee hosts a junior varsity tournament at 9 a.m.