UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE: Princeton High wrestling star Blasé Mele lifts a foe off his feet in a bout during his freshman campaign. Last Thursday, junior Mele earned pair of wins over nationally ranked opponents at the Sam Cali Invitational to earn the 138-pound title on the FDU-Florham campus. Fellow PHS junior Cole Rose also excelled at the invite-only competition, taking third at 126. The Tigers will return to the mats on January 6 at Moorestown for a quad meet before hosting Nottingham in a dual meet January 10. (Photo provided by PHS Wrestling)

By Justin Feil

Blasé Mele has been talking the talk and now the Princeton High School junior is walking the walk.

Mele earned a pair of wins over nationally ranked opponents at the Sam Cali Invitational to earn the 138-pound title last Thursday on the FDU-Florham campus. The title itself wasn’t the big achievement; it was the caliber of opponents that Mele knocked off to win it.

Mele defeated FloWrestling’s 17th-ranked Joseph Joyce of Ponaganset (R.I.) in sudden victory overtime in the quarterfinals for his first huge win. After pinning Jake Zaltsman of state power St. John Vianney in the semifinals, Mele battled back to force overtime before taking a 3-1 win over seventh-ranked Billy Dekraker of Blair Academy, one of the best high school programs in the country.

“The quality of the wins that I got is huge for me because mentally it’s going to change my outlook on the sport and my confidence going forward,” said Mele. “As much as I knew I was a good wrestler before this tournament, these two wins over nationally ranked kids only drives that message home more. It has me excited for the rest of the season knowing that’s the level I should be at, that my ceiling as a wrestler is competing at that level. It gives me a lot of excitement for everything that is to come and it’s motivating me to continue to work hard. I know now that all my goals are in reach and I’m not just wasting time.”

Mele came into the tournament with more confidence than a year ago when he placed fifth at the Sam Cali competition. He had been bold enough to tell both his coach and some teammates that he was going to win this year.

“I’ve definitely seen a difference in him this year,” said PHS coach Jess Monzo. “There’s definitely been a confidence in his walk, how he carries himself. I can see the difference in the school just walking around the hallways. Everything about him — the way he presents himself, when he’s taken leadership roles in the room, in the halls, in the classroom — there’s something different that I haven’t seen in the last two years. I think it’s a testament to what he’s been doing and the goals he’s setting for himself.”

Mele still needed to back up this talk. He’s been hyper-focused on finishing better this season after a top-12 finish at the state championship last year. By most outside accounts he had a good season last year, but he wasn’t satisfied with his performances in the biggest matches of the year, even though there were steps forward from his freshman year when he also qualified for the state championship.

“I’ve got very lofty expectations with wrestling,” said Mele. “As much as it’s nice to see progression and improvement, I’m a competitor and I love to win. Losing, it eats at me unlike anything else. When I go out on the mat, my only goal is I want to win and assert my dominance over my opponent. It doesn’t matter on what level it is, if it’s at the state tournament or a big tournament like Sam Cali, or a local dual meet, I don’t step on the mat to not look to win. At the end of the day, last season was a success because I advanced far, I finished in the top 12, but at the end of the day I lost when it mattered. That’s something that’s motivated me for a long time, to make sure even if I win the majority of the season I also have to win when it matters most.”

Mele, though, was more focused on the six times that he lost, and all of the wrestlers that beat him last year placed at states while he did not. Huge wins at Sam Cali enforced that he has turned a corner.

“He wrestles, he trains, he does everything like he’s supposed to do to belong but we haven’t been able to achieve that big win until recently,” said Monzo. “It was huge. It’s going to do tremendous things for him, just to give him the confidence that he can step on the mat now and say I’m no longer the guy that’s looking to do something. I have that signature win I’ve been looking for that lets me know and justifies that everything I’ve been doing is right and is working, and now I can sit at the big table.”

Mele was joined at the invite-only Sam Cali tournament by his teammate and classmate Cole Rose. Rose finished third at 126 pounds when he edged Najati Salim of Clifton, 8-7. He won third by stopping Frankie Burgio of Point Pleasant Borough, 6-3, in sudden victory in the consolation semifinals before topping Salim for bronze.

“He wrestled terrific,” said Monzo of Rose. “We were at a point in the semis where if one thing goes his way, he’s in the finals. We kind of slipped up a bit in the middle of the second period and went behind and couldn’t really gain our footing anymore. We dropped down a couple points and couldn’t find a way to chip away.”

Rose picked up tight wins over Randall Jenks of Christian Brothers Academy, 2-1, in the round of 32, and over Chase Napeloni of Delbarton, 4-2, in the round of 16. He beat Salim handily, 11-2, in the quarterfinals before finally falling, 5-2, to Joey Petriello of Dumont in the semifinals.

“To lose that way, and then come back and beat a kid again that he beat earlier in the day was impressive,” said Monzo. “You know when you get another chance that kid’s going to do everything in his power to win. I think the first match was 11-2 and the second time I think we only won by a point so that kid had the motivation and we figured out how to negate it. So he wrestled great. I’m super happy with the way both of them performed.”

Mele, for his part, pinned Jake Piotrowsky of Pope John XXIII in 2:00 in the round of 32. He won by technical fall, 15-0, over Logan Hrenenko of Sparta in the round of 16. That win set him up to take on Joyce of Rhode Island in the quarterfinals. He brought the same attitude for it as he did to the finals against his Blair opponent.

“I get excited to test myself against somebody like that,” said Mele. “At the end of the day, it’s another chance to prove and show what I’ve been doing. In previous seasons, I haven’t gotten the chance to test myself until the district tournament. And that’s hurt me in the past. This weekend was amazing because I had two overtime matches against nationally ranked kids, and even if they went the other way that’s still a challenge that I welcome.”

Mele was seeded seventh in the invitational but wrestled his way into the finals. He was trailing Dekraker, 1-0, before being awarded a point in the final seconds of regulation. He then won the match with a takedown in overtime over an opponent against whom he had a little experience.

“I wrestled him in middle school growing up in practices, never in a match,” said Mele. “In middle school, he got the better of me in practices. That was something in my mind — this is a match to prove not just to everybody else, but prove to myself that I can hang with a guy that used to beat me up in practice. It feels nice when you win and show you closed the gap on somebody like that.”

The win helped Mele back up the confidence that has grown from working even harder in the offseason than he has in previous years. He has spent more time with his club team traveling to get tougher practices and competition and more time on his own cultivating his technique and working on his mental toughness. The work has raised his belief in himself, and was a reason that he felt confident saying he would win at Sam Cali.

“In the past I’ve been pretty reserved about making statements like that,” said Mele. “I think my mentality has changed and I’ve moved toward speaking things into existence. If I truly believe that I can hang with the best, I need to speak that into existence, talking with coaches, talking with teammates, talking with family members. There’s a time to be humble, but there’s also a time to let everyone know what you’re about. I think that’s what I did this weekend. I let the whole state know, the whole county know, that this is what I’m about. I’m not here to take part, I’m here to do some amazing things.”

Mele and the Tigers will return to the mats on January 6 at Moorestown for a quad meet before hosting Nottingham in a dual meet January 10. Entering the Sam Cali tournament was important for getting Mele and Rose tougher competition like they saw at last year’s state championships. PHS will do so again at the Escape the Rock tournament January 13-14 at Council Rock South (Pa.). But not every match will be as difficult for Mele as he tries to progress and sharpen for a state tournament run.

“That’s where the mental component really comes in, having the internal drive to stay ready,” said Mele. “There’s an expression — if you stay ready, you never have to get ready. I’m always ready to put it on the line against a high-level competitor. Coach Monzo could call me up right now and I’d be ready to go in an hour. Afforded the opportunity to wrestle good competition, I’m going to be ready. That speaks volumes about my mentality about this sport. This is not a hobby, this is a way of life for me. I’m very focused on staying ready.”

Mele credits coaches, teammates, and family with keeping him on the right path for preparation. He isn’t resting on his accomplishments last week. He is focusing on making weight, developing his technique further, and being mentally ready for every challenge to come. Winning at Sam Cali was reassuring.

“It shows that my preparation is working and the things I’m doing in the Princeton High room and outside of the Princeton High room are working,” said Mele. “It gives me more reason to believe that I’m doing the right things and that I’m headed in the right direction. I’m not doing things just for the sake of doing them, I’m doing them because they’re proven to have worked in the past and I believe that they’re going to work in the future.”

An improved Mele took advantage of his first big opportunity of the season to show his progress. He showcased his improvements not just with a win over one nationally ranked wrestler, but proved it was no fluke with another triumph over a ranked opponent in the final. Both came in high pressure overtime matches.

“You heard the confidence and saw it pouring out of him,” said Monzo. “‘I know I belong, I’m going to show I belong.’ And then he was back in the room the next morning at 8 a.m. He’s definitely a little different as a wrestler, different as a person. It’s amazing how much growth you can see in such a short time.”

The wins set Mele up to achieve the lofty goals that he has set. He won’t see many wrestlers better than what he saw at Sam Cali, and the experience of knocking off two highly ranked opponents is just the sort of step he was looking for at the beginning of his junior year.

“It’s a great start to the season,” said Monzo. “We didn’t really train for the Sam Cali. We’re training for a state title. This just happens to be one of the milestones we’re going to hit during the year.”