Steinert High School junior Brandon Cray holds the bracket from the state wrestling championship in Atlantic City. Cray claimed Steinert’s first individual state wrestling title March 8, 2015, and is ranked No. 12 nationally by Intermatwrestle.com.
Wrestlers know that not much compares to the referee raising your hand at the end of a match.
Steinert High School junior Brandon Cray knows that as well as anyone, perhaps better than anyone in the county. The 113-pounder has had his hand raised over and over again, but his most significant moment came on March 8 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, where he became the first wrestler in Steinert history and just the third in Mercer County history to capture a state title.
“You want to keep getting that hand raised,” he said. “That’s why you’re here to wrestle. That’s really it.”
Fellow Steinert junior Jon Bernstein joined Cray in AC, but he was eliminated in the first round.
Both wrestlers traveled a tough road to states, and for Bernstein, it dates back to last season. He missed the entirety of his sophomore campaign due to a boken collarbone, missing out on a year’s worth of potential tournament experience.
“I didn’t come into this season with a whole lot of expectations,” he said. “I didn’t know really where I wanted my weight to be at. I was just going to try to wrestle my best and see what I could do. I had no past experience to go off of to know what I could expect for the season.”
So advancing to states, he said, was a pleasant surprise.
“It was satisfying, and it gave me a lot of confidence to know that I was hanging with the toughest guys in the state and knowing I was up there with them.”
To get there, he first placed third at the county meet, followed by a second-place District 25 finish. At regions, Bernstein had to battle back up to a third-place slot after a Saturday morning loss.
With states in mind, he was able to secure his ticket to AC.
“I knew I had to stay focused and keep trying to win the whole time, and do what I could do to get through regions,” he said. “That was the only thing that was really important to me, getting through.”
Cray, on the other hand, was out of commission for three weeks in late January with mononucleosis, causing him to miss the Mercer County Tournament.
He wasn’t sure how hard returning to the mat would be on his body, but he knew one thing: after weeks of zero physical activity, getting his endurance back to where it needed to be was priority No. 1.
“Mono is a pretty serious thing,” he said. “I just knew coming back that I needed to get my stamina up. I have the wrestling, I have the experience, but if I can’t go six minutes, it’s kind of out the door. I worked really hard on that, and it held up.”
It certainly did. Cray, ranked 12th in the nation by intermatwrestle.com, breezed through districts, where he defeated Allentown’s Sebastian Rizzo in the finals, and regions, where he pinned Chris Wolf of Haddon Township in the title match. The two titles were his second-straight.
Once districts and regions were behind him, Cray had states to think about. He was aware that he had the chance to make Hamilton history, but he tried to block it out.
“I knew what [a state title] would do,” he said. “I didn’t really try to think of it a lot, just so I wasn’t nervous or anything. I definitely knew that this would be a pretty big deal and that I had to get it done.”
And he did. Cray defeated Pope John’s Jake Rotunda by injury default in his first match and defeated Trace Kinner of Kingsway in the quarterfinal bout.
Then, it was on to much-touted Sebastian Rivera, the then-undefeated Christian Brothers junior and son of a former state and national champion. The match went into triple overtime, but Cray came out on top.
“I ended up riding him out and getting a reversal to win the match,” he said. “That was the match that send me to the finals, so it kind of made the finals even better. I just knew I had to ride him out. Once I did, there was no way he was going to hold me. I wasn’t going to let that happen at all. I reversed him.”
Cray defeated Gianni Ghione of Brick Memorial in the championship match. Heading into the finals, head coach Adam Jankos had a simple piece of advice for the Spartan.
“‘[Don’t worry] about who you’re wrestling. Just go out there and wrestle your match,’” Jankos said he told Cray. “Certain things you want to focus in on, but it’s not really the person out there. It’s the match that you want to wrestle. Set it at your pace.”
It was Cray’s proudest moment as a wrestler, and his coach was just as excited.
“Every coach down there is also striving to coach a state champion,” he said. “I’ll tell you what, there’s nothing more satisfying. I’ve never had a coaching moment like that, and I’m just so happy and grateful to be a part of that. It was a nice experience.”
Cray said the response since the victory has been a little overwhelming—lots of congratulations and media coverage—but for now, he’s just taking it in. And Jankos is, too. Mayor Kelly Yaede—who plans on dedicating a plaque to Cray in Veterans Park—and Steinert’s administration have approached Jankos about honoring Cray, and it’s well-deserved.
“We’ve got a couple things in the workings that are going to let him know and everyone else is going to know that he made his mark here at Steinert,” he said.
Jankos is also hopeful that Cray and Bernstein will use their success to reach out to young wrestlers in youth programs, like Hamilton PAL, which has struggle over the last couple of years.
“To show your face there, to say, ‘Listen, we go to Steinert now, and we want you guys to go through here and do what we did. Keep this tradition going and continuously have state placewinners every year,’ that’s the ultimate gratification for a coach,” Jankos said. “To have successful wrestlers on the mat every year.”
Bernstein said its definitely something the pair can handle. He knows what kind of message he’d like to pass on to future Spartans.
“The hard work pays off,” he said. “It’s just you on the mat. When you win, there’s no feeling that compares to it because you know you worked hard to earn that victory. Once you start winning, you can’t match the feeling of winning.”
,
