Easton Area High School teams have won 601 dual-meet wrestling matches in their 51 years of wrestling. The Rovers -- in the past three decades plus one season under coaches Bob Zarbatany,Dave Crowell and current Easton boss Steve Powell -- have 431 of those wins with just 66 losses and 7 ties as they head into the 1998-99 season. 

     Easton has without a doubt one of the premier wrestling programs in Pennsylvania. The Rovers have won six state wrestling championships during that time. The Easton Wrestling Boosters Club will be honoring two of those state champion teams Friday evening at the Easton Eagles Club in Forks Township. 

     The two squads are the 1968-69 and 1973-74 editions, both coached by Zarbatany. He compiled a 116-14-3 slate in his 10-year stint as the Rovers coach. He led the 1968-69 team to a 11-1-0 record and the 1973-74 team to a 14-0-0 record.  Zarbatany, a 1953 Easton graduate, arrived back in Easton prior to the 1967-68 season after coaching Bound Brook, N.J.,(Somerset County) High School to a 45-11 record. Zarbatany succeeded John Maitland and promptly led the Rovers to a 12-1 campaign in his rookie season. 

     The 1967-68 season laid the groundwork for future Easton wrestling squads. "The first year was important to the program," Zarbatany said, looking back. "I had to instill my system, and team discipline was one of my first goals." 

      It worked as the Rovers lost only one match that second season to a undefeated Phillipsburg, N.J., squad coached by Thad Turner that was in the midst of a 59-match unbeaten streak. The Rovers and Stateliners each won six bouts, but the Garnet and Gray prevailed by a 21-18 score. 

      After two more winning seasons, a group of promising sophomores made their first appearance at EAHS. The next four seasons, and the third one in particular were special to EAHS wrestling fans. In the first of those seasons (1971-72), the Red and White finished with a 12-1 slate. The last of the four, the 1974-75 team finished 13-1. In between, Zarbatany's grapplers ran off a 41-match unbeaten streak, going undefeated in both the 1972-73 and 1973-74 seasons. 

      The dual-meet records of the two teams being honored tells you only part of the wrestling equation. The post-season tournaments tell the rest. And the similarities can be described in one word -- remarkable. 

      The 1968-69 squad 30 years ago advanced seven wrestlers to the district finals that were being held at Easton's 25th Street Gymnasium for the last time after a eight- year run. The 1973-74 squad advanced eight into the finals at Liberty's High School's Memorial Gym in Bethlehem five years later. 

      Both teams won five individual championships, and won district team championships in the process. Zarbatany's grapplers, in both of the finals, pulled major upsets. In the 1969 finals, 103-pounder Ed Gigliotti defeated defending state 
champion Randy Biggs from Bethlehem Freedom High and in 1974 it was 119- pounder Brian Lutz who defeated state place-winner Don Severn of Saucon Valley High School. 

      The Northeast Regionals proved to be as good if not better for the two squads. The 1969 squad sent their five champions to Scranton's CYC becauseonly district champions advanced to the regional event up to and including the 1971-72 campaign. The 1974 squad advanced their eight finalists to Williamsport High School. 

      Zarbatany's 1969 charges stole the show in Scranton. The Rovers wrestled 10 bouts in the semifinals and finals and won all 10. The biggest win came in the second bout of the semi's, when talented junior Carl `Chico' Lutes defeated the 1968 defending state champion, West Snyder's Ken Hess. Gigliotti. Co-Captains Bob Pratt and Barry Snyder and Mike Capobianco, along with Lutes, were Easton's regional champions. The 1974 edition sent five grapplers into their regional finals, and guess what? They, too, came away with five titles. The five champions were Co-Captains Curt Stanley and Darwin Brodt, Greg Shoemaker, Russ Snyder and Lee Guzzo. 

      Another similarity is that both teams' state championships were held at Penn State's Recreation Hall. 

      It's an important statistic because during the Zarbatany era, the Rovers had at least one state champion in the seven years that the PIAA held the event on the Nittany Lion campus. The other three seasons, the Rovers were shut out at Harrisburg's Farm Show Arena. 

      The 1969 event saw three Red Rovers reach the state finals, and in 1974 a pair of Red and White grapplers made it to the championship match. Lutes won a state championship, pinning all-state football running back Alan Andrews of Johnstown in the first period, and Pratt and Snyder lost hard-fought matches in the finals as Easton with 42 points finished in first place, 6 ahead of West York. 

      Easton's other state championships squads were the 1981, 1983,1996 and 1997 editions. They were pretty good, but I'll tell you about them another day, when we talk about the other great state championship teams that call 25th Street and 
William Penn Highway their home. 

      The 1974 edition saw Stanley defeat Washington's Tim Mousetis 7-5 and Brodt pinning Mt. Lebanon's John Lohman in the first period. Senior Russ Snyder, Barry's younger brother, and Shoemaker went on to finish in third and fourth- place, respectively. Easton, with 69-1/2 points, easily defeated runnerup Lock Haven who finished with 47. 

      The other ingredients for success, were Zarbatany's assistant coaches -- Malcom Purdy, Bob Winters and Kurt Weaver. Purdy was "Zarb's" assistant during his first season and between the 1972-73 and 1974-75 seasons. Winters succeeded Purdy in 1969 and Weaver who was Zarbatany's starting 120-pounder on the 1969 team, assisted Zarbatany on the 1973-74 team. 

      The other key ingredients were starters Ed Ferraro and Bob Holmes, both district runnerups in 1969 along with starters, Weaver, Larry Davis, Don Danser, Denny Billman, Jay Golden, Dave Iobst and Chris Spadoni. 

      The 1974 squad had Henry Callie and Russ Grifo, both district runnerups, along with starters Mark Bierei, Bob Minotti, Ray Wilkins, Steve Jordan, Chris Bartholomew and Jim Palmer making valuable contributions. 

      Easton's other state championships squads were the 1981, 1983,1996 and 1997 editions. They were pretty good, but I'll tell you about them another day, when we talk about the other great state championship teams that call 25th Street and William Penn Highway their home.