Another Sunday tournament, another win for RKYHS wrestling. This, after a slow start to the season, has the entire team eagerly anticipating their upcoming and biggest challenge of the season—the Wittenberg Tournament.

This week, again, the Cobras were the sole Jewish school in the tournament but, after two recent wins at public school tournaments, the team came ready to leave its mark.

Of the 14 participating schools, public, prep and Kushner, some were repeats from last week’s North Bergen Tournament, but there were also a number of different schools from Union and Essex counties represented. Kushner attended this tournament only missing one starter, and looked to continue its winning ways after stellar performances at both the Morris Knolls Tournament and North Bergen.

The matches began and, once again, most of the team made it through the first two rounds. After the medal rounds, Kushner had two first place and four second place finishers. The team was hoping it would be enough to secure a repeat of North Bergen.

Like last week, Coach Cilio was called to the head table, where he was told, “Tell your kids not to leave, we haven’t finished totaling yet, but we think you definitely have it.”

When the announcement finally came, the response from the team probably rivaled what was heard later that night in living rooms and sports bars across America, as the New England Patriots accomplished the unprecedented. A Jewish wrestling team had just won another public high school tournament, its third in a row. Equally unprecedented.

As they presented the “King of the Mountain” team trophy, the Cobras felt like the champions they were. Another first place team trophy and, in addition, one of the Kushner wrestlers took home the “Outstanding Wrestler of the Tournament Award.” It was a great day for the Cobras.

As proud as coaches Cilio and Kestler were of their team’s performance in the tournament, they were even more proud of their wrestlers when they heard the tournament director and other coaches comment, “Coach, your Kushner kids are a class act. The way they won and lost was an example to the other teams. They are a really, really tough team, but treated everyone with respect. It was a pleasure to have them here.”