LONG BRANCH — With the championship season right around the corner, Long Branch is coming together at the perfect time.

The Green Wave, ranked No. 6 in the Shore Sports Network Top 10, routed an undermanned No. 8 Ocean squad, 44-17, on Tuesday night to capture the Shore Conference Class B North division title.

Freshman Austin Cannon scored a 6-3 victory over Grant Brown at 145 pounds in the second bout of the match to set the tone, and Arturo Rios, Connor Mullan, John Tomlinson and Andy Hernandez delivered pins to give the red-hot Green Wave (14-2, 6-0) their ninth straight win.

Ocean wrestled without starters Zach Hertling, Jason Lawhon, Joey Benner and Viet Le. Hertling is out for the remainder of the season with a torn ACL, while Lawhon had surgery on a torn meniscus and could potentially be back for the District 22 tournament. Both Benner and Le were held out for a violation of team rules, according to head coach Cippy Apicelli.

“Obviously that’s not the lineup they thought they were going to have in the beginning of the year, but they were still dangerous in some spots,” said Long Branch head coach Danny George. “I think we continued to wrestle at all 14 weight classes and I think that puts pressure on teams. When you do that and get on a roll good things happen.”

Long Branch captured its 19th division title in program history and second in a row, and has won division titles in six of the last eight seasons.

Cannon’s decision over Brown jumpstarted the Green Wave, as they took 10 of 14 bouts from Ocean (10-6, 4-2). Cannon (6-0) scored two takedowns in the second period to erase a 3-1 deficit, including one directly off a restart to give him a 5-3 lead heading into the third period. Brown (18-4), a junior, bumped up from his usual 138-pound weight class. He was a third-place finisher in District 22 and a Region VI fourth-place medalist in 2012.

“For a freshman, he’s extremely poised,” George said of Cannon. “He wrestles great in positions and his timing couldn’t be better. That shot off the whistle caught (Brown) totally off guard. He’s not wrestling like a freshman. He’s wrestling at a level you get from experience that juniors and seniors have.”

Cannon’s victory tied the match 3-3, and Long Branch then won the next five bouts to take a 25-3 lead. A 19-6 major decision by Nick Menkin over Carter Marquette at 152 pounds was followed by Brandon Perez’s 3-2 decision over T.J. Saldutti at 160. Pins by Rios and Mullan extended the lead to 22-3, and at 195, T.J. Covin outlasted Tyler Thompson, 7-5 in sudden victory. Down 5-3 in the third period, Covin scored with a late reversal to send the match to overtime. In the extra period, Covin came out on top of a scramble for the win.

Dan Loizos got Ocean back on the board with a 5-3 overtime win over Joey Jasio at 220, but John Tomlinson pinned Luke Roman in 50 seconds at heavyweight to put Long Branch up 31-6. T.J. Conlon’s 9-5 victory over Dave Tieto at 106 pounds gave Long Branch a 34-6 lead to clinch the match with four bouts left.

“We’re putting our 14 best out and we’re working with about 18 guys,” George said. “It allows our kids to wrestle without any pressure.”

Long Branch will face Point Beach in the first round of the Shore Conference Tournament on Thursday at Raritan. With a win, the Green Wave would square off against the winner of the Raritan and Toms River North match. The Rockets, ranked No. 5 in the Shore Sports Network Top 10 and seeded fourth in the SCT, defeated fifth-seeded Long Branch, 28-26, on Jan. 11.

“This team has gotten a lot better in a short period of time, and we have a lot of room to grow,” George said. “We’re deep and can come at you a lot of different ways. We’re wrestling with no pressure on ourselves, so we’ll see how we go.”

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