Jacob Cardenas went to Virginia Beach and the National High School Coaches Association wrestling championships last weekend with one goal in mind.
“I had a goal to win,” said Cardenas, the Kearny native who wrestles for Bergen Catholic High School. “I knew that it was a tough tournament with different rules. But I had to wrestle the way I normally wrestle.”
It was one thing for Cardenas to win the NJSIAA state championship at 195 pounds like he did three weeks ago in Atlantic City. Winning on the national level is a totally different beast.
But Cardenas had a game plan in mind and went to Atlantic City with his uncle Tony Reis and Tony’s wife to do as best as he possibly can.
Cardenas trains regularly with Kearny’s other high school state champion, namely David Cordoba at Cordoba’s facility, Cordoba Training in Little Falls. Cordoba was not able to travel to Virginia Beach for the tournament, but kept in contact with his prize pupil via cell phone.
“I knew I had to keep offensive,” Cardenas said. “I knew that I had to win.”
Cardenas got through four preliminary rounds, then won his semifinal bout. He had one pin, two technical fall decisions and two major decision victories prior to reaching the finals against a familiar opponent Christian Knopp of Alabama.
“I wrestled him over the summer,” Cardenas said of Knopp. “I beat him in overtime. I knew I could win again.”
So did Cordoba back home in New Jersey.
“I knew Jacob wasn’t the same kid this time,” Cordoba said. “I had a talk with Jacob and told him that he had a mental block on this kid and that he had the advantage. He had to take him down early, put him to his back early. And that’s exactly what he did. He broke him mentally early in the match. He executed the plan.”
Cardenas earned a 6-1 decision over Knopp to earn the national title. So Cardenas has added a national championship to go along with the state title he earned a few weeks ago. Pretty impressive month of March for the 16-year-old native of Kearny.
“This kid is doing a lot of great things,” Cordoba said. “His ability to dominate kids is insane. He has some crazy strength. Even though opponents know a move is coming, they can’t do anything about it. And he’s only 16. He will be a great college wrestler some day.”
It was Cordoba who predicted when Cardenas was just in fifth grade that he would eventually become Kearny’s second state champion _ next to Cordoba, who won the NJSIAA state title at 130 pounds back in 1999.
Now, Cordoba is predicting the second wave of greatness.
“He will be an NCAA champion one day,” Cordoba said. “I just know it. I’m just so proud of him. He’s come a long way. I know he’s going to inspire the next wave of Kearny wrestlers. Kids for the next 10-to-15 years are going to want to be like Jacob.”
Cardenas was still trying to fathom that he won a junior national championship. He won the sophomore nationals in Virginia Beach in March of 2017.
“It’s awesome,” Cardenas said. “I didn’t have any pressure on me. I just had to wrestle. I was a little nervous, but I just had to do what I had to do. I felt pretty good. I took a week off after (winning the state title) Atlantic City to heal a little.”
Now Cardenas will take a few weeks off before his next challenge, the FLONationals in Indiana, Pennsylvania in a few weeks. In that tournament, Cardenas will take on the top seniors in the country.
But this victory, the NHSCA nationals, is considered the premier national title.
“I had a fun weekend,” Cardenas said. “I liked it.”
He also liked getting attention from the college coaches in attendance. You see, since the regular college wrestling season is over, coaches can approach high school athletes with their recruiting pitches. Of course, the colleges were interested in someone as talented as Cardenas.
“Yeah, I had a few come and talk to me,” Cardenas said. “There were a couple of big schools.”
Cardenas didn’t want to let on what schools approached him.
Cordoba was antsy trying to follow the tourney online.
“My stomach was turning the whole time,” Cordoba said. “I couldn’t believe I wasn’t there. But Jacob seemed to be on auto pilot. He shot me texts and I had a game plan for each kid he faced. I looked up the kids he was going to wrestle and knew what he had to do. He did things exactly to plan. I thought he might be undersized against some of these other 195 pounders, but it didn’t matter, because he was just stronger than everyone else in the weight class. I definitely thought he had a chance to win the whole thing and he did.”
Cardenas will head into next wrestling season with the chance of being a two-time NJSIAA state champion, something that no Kearny wrestler ever achieved.
But now, next March, he also has a chance to head to the NHSCA nationals to achieve something very few wrestlers nationally have reached.
“If he goes next year and does well, he’ll be in a very elite group of four-time All-American at the nationals,” Cordoba said. “Only five wrestlers have ever reached that and Jacob’s on pace.”
“I don’t want to think about that,” Cardenas said. “I just want to be good.”
Cardenas will also compete in the granddaddy of all summer wrestling tournaments in Fargo, North Dakota in July.
“Hopefully, I can come out on top there,” Cardenas said.
Can Cardenas fathom the idea that he’s now a state and national champion in the same month?
“No, I would not have believed it,” Cardenas said. “It’s really like a dream come true.”
His hometown of Kearny should do something special to honor the young man, like a Jacob Cardenas Day with a bunting hanging across Kearny Avenue proclaiming, “Welcome to Kearny: Home of NJSIAA and National Wrestling Champion Jacob Cardenas.” After all, it was done for the great national soccer players in the early 1990s for U.S. National soccer players Tony Meola, Tab Ramos and John Harkes. Cardenas is now in the same company with those all-time Kearny legends, a national champion to call our own.
CAPTION
Kearny’s Jacob Cardenas (center) stands atop the podium after winning the 195-pound National High School Coaches Association national wrestling championship last Sunday in Virginia Beach, Va. Photo courtesy of Tony Reis.
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Jim Hague | Observer Sports Writer
Sports Writer Jim Hague was with The Observer for 20+ years — and his name is one of the most recognizable in all of sports journalism. The St. Peter’s Prep and Marquette alum kicked off his journalism career post Marquette at the Daily Record, where he remained until 1985. Following shorts stints at two other newspapers, in September 1986, he joined the now-closed Hudson Dispatch, where he remained until 1991, when its doors were finally shut.
It was during his tenure at The Dispatch that Hague’s name and reputation as one of country’s hardest-working sports reporters grew. He won several New Jersey Press Association and North Jersey Press Club Awards in that timeframe.
In 1991, he became a columnist for The Hudson Reporter chain of newspapers — and he remains with them to this day.
In addition to his work at The Observer and The Hudson Reporter, Hague is also an Associated Press stringer, where he covers Seton Hall University men’s basketball, New York Red Bulls soccer and occasionally, New Jersey Devils hockey.
He’s also doing work at The Morristown Daily Record, the very newspaper where his journalism career began.
During his career, he also worked for Dorf Feature Services, which provided material for the Star-Ledger. While there, he covered the New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets.
Hague is also known for his announcing work — and he’s done PA work for Rutgers Newark and NJIT.
Hague is the author of the book “Braddock: The Rise of the Cinderella Man.”