Winter Sports end of season report

PMS Wrestling 
As the 2022-2023 Princeton Middle School wrestling season comes to an end, we would like to take a quick review on our season. Starting from the first practice, Coach Tim and Coach Manny were excited to work with all the wrestlers who were both full of energy and eager to learn. Many lessons were learned in the first few weeks leading up to our first match for both the wrestlers, and the coaches. Many of the kids were just learning the basics of wrestling while the more experienced ones were adapting to the new coaching style of both Tim and Manny. The coaches were figuring out how to manage all the different personalities and how to effectively teach techniques to a variety of different skill levels. Through trial and error, we were able to put together effective practices for all of our wrestlers and were feeling ready heading into our first match versus Pond Road. We ended up losing to Pond Road by 12 points, however many of the wrestlers got some awesome wins and we were excited to have that match as our starting point.

Following this match the boys took a tough loss to the eventual league champions, Timberlane Middle School before finally getting our first win against Branchburg headed into the break. The boys returned from break with a loss to Stone Bridge solely based on forfeits as they dominated the match split and had numerous bonus point victories. This seemed to be a common theme in our season as we also took losses despite winning the match split to both Kreps and Pond Road. The boys were able to get some awesome wins throughout the season against Princeton Academy, Community, and Grover along with having an amazing Mercer County Tournament generating buzz from the coaches throughout the county.

Forrest Rose put on an OW level performance tech/pinning his way to his second county title while Lutzy Meggers also secured a gold medal. Matthew O’Campo placed second in the county tournament with one of the most exciting matches of the season taking place in the semi finals where he won in overtime. Eddie Del Cid shocked many as the 7th seed, staying calm and composed to upset both the 2nd and 3rd seed to make the finals and secure a silver medal. Lulu Bahr also secured a silver medal making it 3 silvers for the Tigers. Matthew Brophy, Hudson Naso, and Mark Molnar-Somogyvari were able to secure 3 bronzes for the tigers while Liam McCloskey came 4th and Salvotore Taibi and Alex Wayne came 5th. We hope that the boys continue to wrestle in the off season and we can’t wait to have them wrestle for either Princeton Middle or High School next season. The 8th graders will be missed and we hope the boys can work on getting new recruits to join the Princeton Wrestling Family.

Coaches Tim Miranda & Manny Perera

PMS Swim Team
● 2022-2023 Season

● Team and Location:  Princeton Middle School Team, Princeton Middle School Pool

● Coaches:  Chandler Hubert & Joe Knox

● 71 swimmers were on the team.

● Our first meet was Thursday December 8, 2022.  This was an intrasquad meet so there was no score kept.

● Second Meet was 12/12/22 – It was against Wilberforce and Princeton won 127 - 43

● Third Meet was 12/20/22 - It was against Metucheun and Princeton won 101 - 69.

● Fourth Meet was on Thursday 1/12/23.  It was against Warldaw-Hartridge.  We won 125-45.  We broke the 200 freestyle team record set in 2016

● Fifth and final meet was against Elizabeth.  They were late because of traffic but it was okay because we were all behind because of a fire alarm right at dismissal.  We won 135-35

● We had a team party on Thursday 1/19/23.  The swimmers got in the water briefly for some fun games then got out and had breakfast all together as a team.

PMS Boys Basketball 2022-23
The Boys Basketball season was one to be remembered and will be mentioned with the great teams that have come through our community and school. The boys finished 20-3 after only losing to one team (Fisher Middle School), the eventual champions. 

The team was led by three captains, Henry Jamieson-Dove, Leone Westrick and JJ Carter that brought a tremendous amount of heart, dedication, character and resilience under pressure. They carried themselves respectfully on and off the court. They demonstrated a high level of maturity by wearing shirt and ties on game days, watching game film to correct their mistakes, meeting during lunch time to review the scouting report and passing out tickets (game invitations) to would be student supporters. The team shared their selflessness by serving food to the community at Homefront Cornerstone Kitchen. 

Along the way the team grew a fan base from the student body, teachers, staff and administrators. The team filled the stands during the Middle School Mercer Count Tournament playoffs. Chants of "We Not Me" filled the air during the game and the feeling of connectedness carried through the hallways. The team defeated Princeton Academy and Kreps to advance to the championship for the first time in school history. 

Coaches Jason Carter & John McCann.

A Team Members
Henry Jamieson-Dove, JJ Carter, Raymond Buck, Ray McLaughlin, Langsdon Hinds, Fletcher Harrison, Leone Westrick, Gavin Levine, Bram Reynolds, Andrew Spies, William Arns, Yusef Redjal and Jaxon Carter

B Team Members
Jasper Clayton, Quentin McCann, Maheeb Akhter, Chase Gallagher, Ryan Tague, Josue Vaquez, Ben Huh, Graham Hester.

PMS Girls Basketball 2022-23
The girls A basketball team had a good season. They were 8-8-1, and of the eight losses, five were decided by three points or less. In other words, they were in almost all of their games despite a lack of depth and a handful of games when one or more starters were not available. The one tie was on the first game of the season and the score was a discouraging 12-12. Over the season, the team grew offensively and found ways to score points on the interior despite inconsistent shooting: we made two three pointers all season. It was nice to see them progress from 12 points in the opener to routinely scoring in the thirties and forties when at full strength. Their defense was strong most of the season, and the girls really embraced multiple man and zone defensive strategies. The girls fell one point short of a huge comeback victory against Pond Road in the tournament, sadly missing three of four free throws in the last minute and a half, but they battled. Although not as talented as last year's group, the graduating eighth graders are well prepared to step in and contribute as role players in the high-school program. 

Coaches: Julie Frank & Keith McEvoy