Jacobs, a 160-pound senior, transferred from Delsea to Clayton after last school year. He joined a Clayton wrestling team in its fourth year of a co-op with Glassboro.
Jacobs (20-2); heavyweight Rementer (21-0), a Glassboro senior; and 157-pound Clayton junior Steminto Rowe-Akins (22-0) form the core of the strongest team Clayton has had since the merger. The team is 18-1 in dual meets, and No. 5 in the Group 2 Power Rankings.
Clayton and Glassboro are about five miles apart. The combination of the two schools, coach Dan Antonelli said, has been a blessing. Not just for the wider pool of talent, but because, in his eyes, watching the bond his wrestlers quickly formed vindicated what he loves most about the sport.
"It was neat. Within the first two weeks of the first year we did this, you couldn't tell these kids went to different schools during the day," said Antonelli, in his 17th year as head coach at Clayton. "The sport of wrestling is just unique. Wrestlers are a breed of their own. Off the mat, they jell.
"And I think I actually saw that more when we put the programs together like this."
Antonelli, also the athletic director at Clayton, proposed the merger five years ago when neighboring Glassboro's dwindling wrestling program was down to just six participants.
"It was hard for them, budget-wise, to justify keeping the program going," Antonelli said. "So I saw that they had a swimming program. We didn't have a swimming program.
"So I reached out to the athletic director at Glassboro, and we worked it out so our swimmers can join their team and their wrestlers can join us.
"It's been very successful since then."
Part of what made for such a seamless transition was that Antonelli was close with Glassboro coach Frank Damminger.
Damminger joined Clayton as an assistant when his program went under. Having the two seasoned coaches, the wrestlers say, is a big reason why they've seen such increasing success.
