The way Jacob Van Der Horn looks at it, the wrestling mat is like a chess board. Except a circle replaces the checkered surface, and there are two moving pieces rather than a group of stationary ones.
And through Jan. 20, Van Der Horn was usually the one calling checkmate this season.
Entering a Jan. 22 quad meet, the Nottingham High junior was 7-1 with four pins. He opened the season by winning the Blue Devil Classic at Ewing High.
It was a case of making all the right moves.
“It’s like a thinking sport, it’s kind of like chess in a way,” Van Der Horn said. “You gotta think what you have to do, what your counter is to it, then think ahead.”
As he spoke, he sounded like a fine chess player.
“I can play it,” he said. “But I’m not really good.”
It’s been a different case on the mat, where he has gone from a quiet ninth-grader to one of the Northstars top guns.
“He’s dug deep, he’s all in,” said Nottingham coach Jason “The Rock” Marasco, who has been having trouble keeping wrestlers the past two years due to Covid concerns. “He came on real strong at the end of the year last year. He started believing in himself. He started winning matches that even he thought he wasn’t gonna win. He walked off the mat surprised that he beat that kid.”
What kid?
“Anybody that he wrestled toward the end of the season,” Marasco continued. “He was grinding out the victory. It’s not like he was destroying them, but he was working and grinding and showing guts and taking shots for the win, not just hoping for overtime.
“He was our most improved wrestler last year, and he has carried it over this year.”
Van Der Horn is a lifetime wrestler, starting with the Hamilton PAL program in third grade. His curiosity in the sport was piqued by watching WWE.
“I was interested in pro wrestling,” he said, “so I tried amateur wrestling and I’ve been doing it ever since. But I had a really slow start in wrestling. I didn’t start picking up the pace until sixth or seventh grade.”
Jacob said the problem was basically the fact that he was young “and I didn’t really know what was going on.”
It’s a credit to Van Der Horn that he stuck with it, as some guys get discouraged when things aren’t going their way. But he figured struggling in a sport was better than no sport at all.
“I wasn’t doing anything in the winter,” he said. “I was like ‘I might as well; there’s no reason not to.’ It started to click in middle school, I just started to get it.”
Van Der Horn had enough confidence in the sport that he came out for Nottingham as a freshman and went 16-4 on the JV team. He was called up to varsity toward the end of the season and, after losing by technical fall in his first match, Jacob won three straight, including a District 21 match over Ewing’s Arian Hossain at 126 pounds.
In the second round, the ninth-seeded wrestler was pinned by Freehold Borough’s top-seeded Nico Messina, who went on to be a state place winner.
“I kind of got beat up,” Van Der Horn said. “But it was a good experience.”
Marasco noted that his wrestler blended into the background as a freshman.
“He didn’t say a word,” the Rock recalled. “He was quiet. When he came in two years ago we had some pretty good kids so he was taking his licks. I didn’t think there was a chance for him to break into the lineup as a freshman but he worked hard.”
During an abbreviated sophomore year in which there were no districts, Jacob lost four of his first five before winning four of his last five. Marasco marveled at the turn-around, saying it was as if Van Der Horn just flipped a switch.
“He kind of had an awakening when he started beating better kids,” the coach said. “His mom and dad are super supportive, they don’t miss a match, which is great. And they see it too. His dad was like ‘Wow, he’s better!’ I said ‘I told ya, he is good.’”
Van Der Horn said there was a simple reason for his slow start.
“Very early last year I injured my shoulder so I was pretty hesitant in wrestling,” he said. “But then the pain started going away and after I won my match against West I thought I was good. The shoulder wasn’t bothering me as much.
“I definitely gained more confidence in my next matches. When you keep winning it also helps you keep fighting the rest of the match; knowing I could still win. I know I’ve won before, I’ve come back before in the last period; and that just kept me going.”
Van Der Horn, who Marasco feels is effective wrestling on his feet, came back even stronger this year. With the head coach missing much of the first half of the season due to Covid protocols, assistant Charlie “The Pebble” Iacano was doing most of the work with the team and had positive words concerning the Northstars 144-pounder.
“He’s just aggressive,” Iacano said. “He’s a kid who doesn’t say too much, he kind of shows it on the mat. But you can count on him every single day to go out there for six minutes; whether it’s against one of the better wrestlers or not, he’ll put up a good fight. Or when we need bonus points or a pin he’ll go out there and get it for us.”
Iacano feels a big reason for Van Der Horn’s emergence is just the fact he is getting high-level mat time.
“He came in with a little experience from the local PAL program,” Iacano said. “It was just a matter of getting that varsity experience. When you jump from PAL and come into a varsity lineup almost instantly, you need to get that experience. Now he’s a junor, he’ll be a senior, these are his years to start stacking up the wins.”
Aside from being a not-to-good chess player, Van Der Horn is a good trombone player. He was a percussionist in elementary school but when he got to Crockett Middle School he was asked to choose an instrument.
“I’ve been with it ever since,” he said. “I definitely like playing at the football games, they’re really fun, and I especially like the people.”
He did not try out for the orchestra pit for this year’s school show, however, as he hopes to be making a mark in the Mercer County and District 21 tournaments.
“My current goal is just to make it to regions now,” he said. “I want to place top-three in districts, and go for the win there. Regionals are what I’m looking for now.”
In assessing his career, Van Der Horn feels his biggest improvement has been a more aggressive approach.
“In PAL I was really defensive,” he said. “Now I’m trying to get more offense. I was mostly going on defense being on bottom or neutral, defending shots. Or being on top, I would stay on top following a guy. But the last few years I’ve been more offensive, taking more shots, trying more tilts, going for more pins.”
Whatever he’s doing, Marasco hopes he keeps it up.
“He’s hard working,” the coach said. “I can’t say anything bad about the kid.”
Except that he’s admittedly not a very good chess player.
Unless he’s on the mat, of course.
Jacob Van Der Horn. (Photo by Rich Fisher.),
