New Jersey
Walk-off pin caps instant classic in N.J. wrestling state semifinals
Devin Deubel took the mat with a chance to send Emerson-Park Ridge to the Group 1 state final. His task was direct yet daunting. A win alone would not have been enough. Bonus points were the only way.
“We needed four,” Deubel said. “And I got six.”
Locked in a scoreless bout with Audubon’s Will Graham at 157 pounds in the final bout of the state semifinals, Deubel cinched up a cradle and secured the fall at the 4:38 mark. His walk-off pin gave Emerson an incredible 39-36 victory over Audubon in a wild NJSIAA/IBEW Local 102 Group 1 semifinal match on Friday night in Audubon.
Emerson and Audubon combined for pins in nine of the 14 bouts to highlight a frenetic dual with a trip to the state final on the line. Audubon also received a forfeit and won by decision in two bouts. Emerson also had two wins by decision. The forfeit issued by Emerson to Audubon’s David Borodziuk at 190 pounds would have served as the tiebreaking criterion if Deubel won by decision. He needed at least a major decision, but that or a technical fall was not likely when he and Graham entered the third period tied 0-0.
Graham chose defense and quickly rose to his feet, but Deubel was able to stay on his left leg and maintain control. Graham tried to post with his right hand, but that created the opening that Deubel was waiting for. He immediately locked in a cradle and put Graham to his back for the match-clinching pin.
“We’re a cradle team and I’ve been training that every day in practice,” Deubel said. “I knew it was there, and I got it.”
“We call it the whip,” Emerson head coach Joe Mazzeo said. “The kid’s hand hits and you go near-side [cradle] off of it. We told [Deubel] to win first, and then get the extra points. He went big and it worked out for us.”
“It was getting a little nerve wracking but I had faith in him,” senior Tony Rinkiewicz said. “When they drew the sticks [to determine the starting weight], I said Devin is the guy. I wanted him to get the last match.”
Emerson (17-10) will wrestle Delaware Valley in the Group 1 state championship match at noon on Sunday at Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena. The Cavos will be making their fifth state finals appearance and first since 2018. Delaware Valley is the defending Group 1 state champion. The Terriers defeated Hanover Park 58-19 in the other semifinal.
Deubel had the final say, but there were plenty of heroes for Emerson.
At 126 pounds, Rinkiewicz came through with a massive 10-8 decision over Jimmy Moran in a toss-up bout in which he trailed late in the third period. Down 8-4 with less than 30 seconds left, Rinkiewicz scored a reversal and put Moran to his back near the edge of the circle for four near-fall points. His clutch victory put the Cavos ahead 27-21.
“Every day at practice, coach says the only thing you can’t take back is time,” Rinkiewicz said. “And since I’m a senior, I pushed myself all offseason and I’ve been battling through a knee injury. I think about the guys who I practice with every day. We put a lot into the season, and coach keeps saying that if there’s a class to do it, it’s us. I’m just glad we pulled it out.”
“We’re living for the moment,” Mazzeo said. “I told the whole team, live for the moment. That’s why this is a great sport. Anything can happen.”
Audubon (19-9) entered the semifinals off its first sectional title in program history. The Green Wave defeated Paulsboro in the South, Group 1 final, to become the only team to beat the 44-time sectional champion Red Raiders in their home gym during the state tournament. They won the first two weights with Aydean Leahan winning by fall at 165 pounds and Georgios Kappatos winning by decision at 175. Emerson then forfeited to Borodziuk, the lone state qualifier for either team, at 190 as Audubon extended its lead to 15-0.
Emerson got on the board when senior Chase Monahan won by fall in 52 seconds at 215 pounds, but Audubon senior Jonah Jordan got those points right back with a 41-second pin at heavyweight to put the Green Wave up 21-6 through five bouts.
The momentum shifted in the lower weights. Trailing 6-3 after fighting off his back in the first period, Emerson freshman Jake Falkenstern put Mason Knopka to his back with a cement mixer for a pin at the 2:49 mark. Junior Evan Constante did the same at 113 with four seconds left in the first period. At 120, Joe Dimotta was down 3-0 in the second period when he, too, hit a cement mixer. He was able to keep one toe in bounds to finish off the pin and give Emerson a 24-21 lead.
Rinkiewicz followed with his dramatic win at 126 for a 27-21 Emerson lead.
“I did feel the momentum,” Rinkiewicz said. “It’s one after another. If one guy falls down, the next guy comes up.”
Audubon senior RJ Bauman halted Emerson’s four-bout winning streak when he ran a half-nelson for a pin at 132 pounds to tie the match at 27. Jackson Shannon put Emerson back ahead, 33-27, when he came out on top after a brief scramble to win by fall in the first period at 138.
The 144-pound bout between Audubon’s Jimmy McSweeney and Emerson senior Nate Shannon was a sight to behold. Points were scored so fast the scoreboard could barely keep up. Tied 5-5 after two periods, McSweeney and Shannon combined for a scintillating third period that featured 22 total points.
In the final 30 seconds, McSweeney scored a takedown and two back points to take the lead, but Shannon answered with a reversal to go up 16-15. McSweeney escaped at the buzzer to tie the bout and send it to sudden victory. In overtime, McSweeney hit a fireman’s carry for the winning takedown and a 19-16 decision.
The win at 144 for Audubon pulled the Green Wave within three points. Senior Joem Gonzalez gave them the lead, 36-33, with a second-period pin at 150.
Fittingly, the match ended with a pin in the final bout. Deubel made sure it sent his team to Rutgers.
“I’ve never been in a match like that,” Deubel said. “The stakes were high. I was ready for it. There was a lot of emotion, a lot of nerves, but I kept myself composed and got it done.”
New Jersey and New York’s respective governors made competing announcements on the evening of May 12 about how they went to great lengths to lower the prices of tickets to transport people to the 2026 World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium.
Conspicuously missing from these announcements was the New York-New Jersey host committee, a nonprofit with a wide-ranging role to hunt down practice fields for teams; coordinate multiple local, state and federal agencies; and execute FIFA’s vision for its tournament, the most popular sporting event in the world, which is taking place in 16 cities across Mexico, Canada and the United States this June and July.
Another key host committee task is raising money to support fan events at the stadium and watch parties around the region, and to help pay for logistical needs, such as security and FIFA-required modifications to the stadium and field.
It has also played a critical role in coordinating transportation plans, announcing its own shuttle bus network to the stadium that it will operate at a loss, according to Natalie Hamilton, a host committee spokeswoman. The committee announced last month it will provide NJ Transit with $3.6 million to help pay for discounts for commuters who will be inconvenienced by the matches, which are forcing trains to divert to other stations while Secaucus Junction and New York Penn Station partially close except to match-goers.
So it was striking when New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced that seven corporations had suddenly stepped up to donate money to bring down the cost of NJ Transit’s ticket to MetLife for match-goers to $98, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she would throw in $6 million in taxpayer money to bring down the ticket price of stadium-bound shuttle buses to $20.
Story continues below photo gallery.
Securing those donations and partnerships with corporate sponsors and finding ways to cut prices for fans is among the primary tasks of the host committee. So, what happened?
In a statement through a spokesperson, the host committee said it has been “working aggressively with public and private partners to make transportation more affordable for fans,” and that this is a “uniquely complex region, and a public-transportation-first event due to an expanded stadium activations and an enhanced security footprint.”
“The recent price reductions were not automatic — they were the result of coordination between the host committee, government and private-sector partners,” the statement said. “The host committee helped facilitate the partnership with Highland Bus and supported the effort to expand capacity and lower the price point.
“On the rail side, we have been supportive of NJ Transit as they pursue sponsor support to help offset costs, and we remain in close coordination,” the committee said.
NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri said the agency’s marketing team got very creative to raise advertising revenue through corporate sponsors in the last few weeks in order to reduce the ticket price without relying on taxpayer dollars to do so.
“That was an effort that took tens if not hundreds of hours of all our time while we’re trying to run a system everyday,” Kolluri said. “In the end, we met the governor’s objective — without FIFA’s help, without anybody’s help, we in New Jersey alone reduced the fare from $150 to $98.”
Finger-pointing and tough decisions late in the game
Fraying relationships among the region’s host partners — New Jersey, New York and the host committee — have been on display for months.
In February, with just five weeks under her belt as New Jersey’s governor, Sherrill made waves by suddenly scrapping the Liberty State Park fan festival, a logistically-challenged event being planned by the host committee.
Sherrill hasn’t said why that pivot was made, but multiple sources familiar with the planning told NorthJersey.com that shuttling tens of thousands of people to the waterfront park every day for the 39-day tournament was complicated because of limited mass transportation options.
Instead, Sherrill diverted $5 million in state money intended for Liberty State Park to a new program her administration created in a matter of weeks with Choose New Jersey to provide grants for 34 World Cup events around the state.
The host committee responded by joining forces with the previously announced “Red Bull New York Soccer Celebration” at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison and renaming its part of the festivities the “Jersey Fan Hub.”
But the state is having no part of it, and it even spelled out in the language of a recent $15 million grant provided to the host committee that if it is used for any event held at Sports Illustrated Stadium, the committee will have to forfeit the money.
Ticket prices for the Sports Illustrated event are $10, but the host committee’s fan events in all five New York City boroughs are free, thanks in large part to $20 million from New York State.
But things really escalated once the transportation tickets to MetLife Stadium were unveiled last month.
Eight matches, including the final, will be played at the East Rutherford stadium. Getting tens of thousands of fans there has proved to be an expensive, challenging endeavor since FIFA eliminated the ability to park at the stadium and forced the local governments and the host committee to come up with mass transit solutions and a ride-sharing location.
NJ Transit initially announced it would sell 40,000 train and bus tickets per match for $150 each, and the host committee would provide 10,000 chartered buses for $80 each.
Fans pounced on the expensive transit costs, and local public officials started pointing fingers — reactions that clearly inspired the Hudson River governors to find money to bring down those costs to $98 on the NJ Transit system and $20 on the bus shuttles.
They also increased the number of shuttle buses available by using Highland school buses, so 18,000 tickets will be available on non-school days and 12,000 on school days; Hochul demanded that about 20% of tickets have to be reserved for New York residents.
Did the deep bench pay off?
The New York-New Jersey host committee is stacked with people who have vast experience in fundraising, corporate partnerships and navigating the business world of professional sports — so why weren’t they able to solve this problem?
Alex Lasry and Tammy Murphy, wife of former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, were named the host committee’s CEO and board chair, respectively, in February 2025 — and both have backgrounds in politics, fundraising, professional sports teams and public-private partnerships.
Tammy Murphy founded and owns the pro soccer team Gotham FC with her husband, has overseen multiple political fundraising organizations, and launched an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in 2024, raising $3.2 million in her campaign’s first six weeks.
Lasry was previously an executive of the Milwaukee Bucks, the professional basketball team his family purchased in 2014. He also unsuccessfully ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin in 2022, and was named co-treasurer of the Democratic Governors Association in 2023.
The host committee wouldn’t provide information on how much money it has raised in the three years since its formation in 2023, but it said “fundraising remains ongoing” and there are seven “host city supporters” that have been announced in the last two years.
Daniel Lynch joined the committee to become its chief commercial officer, leaving a nearly 20-year career with the New York Giants, where he most recently served as vice president of corporate partnerships. The committee’s co-host city managers — who have worked on World Cup planning since before the host committee was formed — are Lauren LaRusso and Bruce Revman.
LaRusso was general counsel in Phil Murphy’s government authorities unit that works with such agencies as NJ Transit and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. Revman was a managing director of New York City Tourism & Conventions.
Traditionally, a host committee provides most of the guidance for the major organization it represents because its members understand the infrastructure of the location, especially such details as hotel access and traffic patterns, said Aaron Moore, a professor of public relations and event planning at Rider University in Lawrenceville.
When it comes to soliciting donations, there will always be a political element, and major corporations make such donations out of their marketing budgets, he said.
“Rather than buy television advertisements or digital advertisements, they’re going to be what is called ‘the proud sponsor’ of this event. So that means that company is going to get a lot of positive publicity having their names attached by being called a sponsor,” he said.
Tensions with host committees not unique
Nearly all the host committees around the country have struggled to raise money for the World Cup — and it’s not surprising given the restrictions imposed by FIFA, the Zurich-based soccer organization that runs the tournament and stands to receive at least $11 billion in profit from this year’s World Cup.
FIFA has a number of global sponsors from some of the world’s most profitable companies — such as Coca-Cola, Adidas, Qatar Airways and Visa — and prevents competing brands from appearing at its tournaments. Host committees must therefore spend money and go to great lengths to eliminate all other ad branding at host stadiums.
For example, any reference to “MetLife” will be scrubbed from the East Rutherford stadium, and it will be rebranded “New York New Jersey Stadium” for the duration of the tournament.
FIFA also wasn’t provided tickets or suites to matches to dangle in front of potential sponsor companies. Taken together, this severely limits their ability to attract local sponsors.
Most host cities are allowed to secure no more than 10 sponsorships. The New York-New Jersey host committee is allowed a maximum of 20, but few have reached 10.
How does money get prioritized?
Other U.S. host cities are feeling financial pressures similar to those of the New York-New Jersey region, with fan fests getting downsized and public confrontations sprouting over funding spats. Last year in California, FIFA threatened to deny public viewing licenses to the host committee after disagreements over money.
The question that arises is: How does the money raised by host committees get prioritized?
In Philadelphia, the host committee partnered with Airbnb to provide free rides home on the SEPTA Broad Street Line after all six matches in that city, a corporate sponsorship model the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles have used on various game days in past years. Match-goers will pay a one-way, standard subsidized fare of $2.90 to attend World Cup matches.
Meg Kane, CEO of Philadelphia’s host committee, told The Athletic that the committee focused on minimizing transportation costs from the beginning of the bid process to become a host city.
But it’s hard to compare Philadelphia’s experience to New Jersey’s:
- New Jersey is hosting eight matches, including the final, while Philadelphia is hosting six.
- Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field holds about 65,000 fans, while MetLife will seat about 78,000 for the World Cup.
- Philadelphia’s subway system is designed to transport around 15,000 people an hour, while NJ Transit’s Meadowlands shuttle can move about 10,000. The Garden State has approved spending up to $135 million to design, engineer and construct a bus route to complement the train shuttle between Secaucus Junction station and MetLife to move another 10,000 people per hour.
- FIFA eliminated 23,000 parking spots normally available at MetLife to increase its security and media perimeter, which shifted the burden of transporting 56,000 fans to NJ Transit, the host committee’s bus shuttle and ride-sharing. Philadelphia’s stadium will have parking, which will reduce strain on the city’s mass transit system.
‘The wonders of American democracy’
New Jersey, without assistance from host partner New York, has approved more than $307 million in taxpayer spending to provide the host committee with a loan and make FIFA-required changes to the stadium and infrastructure upgrades, according to documents obtained by NorthJersey.com.
Sherrill says she won’t keep shifting the tournament’s financial burdens to taxpayers.
Those tensions — and the use of host committees — are in stark contrast to the last two World Cup tournaments, which were held in Qatar and Russia, where most of the coordinating went through a central government and money wasn’t an issue, said Robert Sroka, an assistant professor of sports management at Towson University in Maryland.
“Here, you have the wonders of American democracy at work and all sorts of political tensions that aren’t present in other places,” Sroka said.
While the host committees are meant to lessen the financial burdens on taxpayers, the final bill will end up falling to local and state governments that agree to host these expensive mega events.
“Current politicians, whether they like it or not, they have to deal with whatever was left on their plate by their predecessors,” Sroka said. “You’re stuck with the bill — so enjoy the party while it lasts.”
New Jersey
For FIFA World Cup, New Jersey encourages towns to extend alcohol sales at bars, restaurants
New Jersey is trying to help bars and restaurants cash in on the FIFA World Cup by letting them sell more alcohol throughout the tournament.
Over a pint of Guinness at Mulligan’s Pub in Hoboken, Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Monday signed a proclamation encouraging municipalities to temporarily extend alcohol sales during matches.
“This is the first time I’ve signed a proclamation in a bar,” said Sherrill.
What could change?
The goal is to convince local leaders to let bars and restaurants open earlier or stay open later to align with the World Cup schedule across time zones.
Changes would vary from town to town, since the proclamation does not mandate any changes to local rules. It simply gives the option to adjust them during the 39-day event.
“It’s allowing businesses to really get some good economic impact from the World Cup,” said Sherrill.
Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour said she’s open to the idea.
“I think we’ll be taking this into consideration as a great option for us,” Jabbour said. “We’ve been actively working with our public safety departments to make sure that all of the logistics around World Cup are coordinated appropriately.”
Bar owner expects big crowds
Mulligan’s Pub owner Louis Jannuzzi said the business is expecting big crowds during the tournament.
“We’re expecting a lot of people to show up, but we’re going to make it the best place to go watch a game, other than going to the game itself I suppose,” Jannuzzi said.
Extended hours could be mean even bigger business for Mulligan’s and bars across the state.
The six-county region — Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, Passaic and Union — is home to 2.6 million residents, six major league teams and four NCAA Division I athletic programs that collectively drew 12.7 million in attendance during our study.
Home base: The region is home to sports business companies including: 16W Marketing; BetMGM; Goldklang Group; Mars Wrigley (U.S. operations); Prudential Financial; Samsung; Skanska; and ZRG Partners.
Over the past three years, MetLife Stadium (which will host eight 2026 FIFA World Cup matches, including the final), and Prudential Center (which added the PWHL Sirens to its busy roster) each reported record revenues, and Sports Illustrated Stadium snagged a new naming-rights deal and will be the official NY/NJ World Cup 26 Jersey Fan Hub.
Recent events and wins for the area include WrestleMania in 2019; the SheBelieves Cup, presented by Visa in March; 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball East Regional; and Brazil’s base camp at the Red Bulls’ Columbia Park Training Center.
Previous Rankings
2023: #2 (with New York City)
2024 Event Hosting: #7 (with New York City)
2025 Soccer: #2 (with New York City)
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