School board honors championship Cedar Grove teams
Joshua Jongsma
Staff Writer, @jongsmjo
Cedar Grove High School Athletic Director Rob Gogerty described the winter sports season as a good one for the district, highlighted by two state championship teams.
The high school cheerleading and wrestling teams were honored for their championship seasons during a Tuesday Board of Education meeting. Each member of the teams received a certificate and had their moment in the spotlight at the meeting.
The cheerleaders won their second Group 1 title in a row in addition to six other first-place finishes through the year, plus a Grand Championship at the Parsippany Vikings 12th annual Cheerleading Invitational in February.
"This competition cheerleading team just continues to dominate," Gogerty said. "They had another great season."
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The wrestling team, meanwhile, repeated as sectional champions. While they finished the regular season with only a 10-11 record, the Panthers "got hot at the right time," the athletic director said.
The wrestlers also finished second in the Essex County Tournament, the highest in program history. Anthony Clarizio reached the 100-win milestone as well.
In addition to the student-athletes, Gogerty recognized wrestling head coach Derrick Goduto for being named the District 7 and Region 2 coach of the year.
"Those two awards really are a bit different because they're not picked by media outlets or newspaper people," Gogerty said. "Those awards are picked by the other coaches so when someone gets the district coach of the year, the region coach of the year, they're picked by their colleagues, the guys they're competing against which I think is an awesome award."
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Beyond the state champions, Gogerty said the hockey team also won its most games in program history, the boys and girls basketball teams both reached the playoffs, and the girls basketball team reached the sectional finals for the first time. Cedar Grove also had 17 winter sports athletes nominated to all-conference teams, which the athletic director said is a "huge amount" for a small school.