Glory Days: Hackettstown High School 2006-2007 Wrestling

By Steve Sears

They were a team that won just about everything, and their legendary head coach had a front row seat.

“By the time they were juniors and seniors, I amped the schedule,” Frank Rogers says of his 2006 – 07 Hackettstown Tigers wrestling team. “I went out and got the best teams within reasonable distance that would wrestle us. Our schedule was already tough as it was, and so I amped up the schedule, and they loved it. They rose to the occasion every time. It didn’t matter to them. When it came match time, they did not like to lose. They took it very personally.”

Losing during that winter campaign happened just twice, to powerhouse South Plainfield both in the regular season (a six-point defeat decided in the last bout) and in the Group 1 finals. Other than that, consider the team’s accomplishments. The Tigers finished 21 – 2 and won their first ever Skyland Conference Raritan Division championship, and went on to win the North II, Group II state sectional championship for the second consecutive year with a 54-6 trouncing of West Morris Mendham High School. Prior to that, there were also first place finishes in the Hunterdon\Warren (the first time in school history), Morris Knolls, and Lenape Valley tournaments. They were also voted the #6 team in the state by coaches.

“I had the best seat in the house,” Rogers says. “I got to watch all of it.”

“We got better every year that I was there, and that was in part because we were getting better, but also because our youth programs at the time would send us extra pieces,” senior captain Cory Vernon says. ‘My class graduated seven seniors, and all of them were starters. Then I believe the grade under me graduated about six seniors that were all starters., and so on and so forth. It’s really the feeder program. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I knew how good we really had become as a team especially. We were tough from top to bottom. There were very, very few holes in our lineup.”

The names are memorable. Vernon, one of four captains that season, wrestled at 145 pounds and finished his career with a then-school record of 122 wins, and Zach Ulm (171 pounds) wasn’t far behind with 112. Fellow captains Keith Swanson and Billy Strathern finished with 77 and 79 career wins respectively. Seniors Keith Morris at 125 pounds, Rich Peters at 189 pounds and heavyweight Nick Souders, as well as