'A shark in water': St. Joseph's Brian Christie gets 100 career pins

That’s a great question, St. Joseph head wrestling coach Mike Carbone responded.

Just what makes Brian Christie such an outstanding pinner? Few wrestlers get so many falls no matter how good.

“It’s weird, me and the coaching staff talk about it all the time,” Carbone said. “He just has such pin awareness. It’s insane. People won’t come off their back against Brian. The one thing is, his grip and his arms, they’re like dynamite. Like they’re super strong. They’re like cement blocks.

“You feel, even in the room when you’re wrestling with him and he feels he has a pin, he kicks it into like a fifth or sixth gear.”

Assistant coach Allan Jordan added, “Smells blood.”

“Yeah,” Carbone continued, “that a lot of guys don’t have. He’s almost like a shark when he’s out there. He’s a shark in water, you know, like when they smell blood. It’s crazy.”

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Christie got his 100th pin last Saturday and now has a career record of 114-24 with 101 pins. It’s an exclusive club. While a complete list wasn’t available, Christie may have been just the 10th wrestler in state history to reach the mark.

The list includes legends like four-time state champions Andrew Campolattano (Bound Brook) and Mike Grey (Delbarton, current Cornell head coach) and NCAA champion Darrion Caldwell (N.C. State and Rahway).

Christie’s right there with them. The 215-pound senior seems primed for a deep postseason run with the district tournaments beginning Saturday. What makes Christie’s 100 pins even more impressive is that he only had 17 matches in his Covid-shortened freshman season (14-3 with 13 pins at 182/195).

He’s now 32-2, including a 3-1 defeat to defending state champion Hudson Skove (Rumson-Fair Haven) en route to a third-place finish at the prestigious Beast of the East.

The 5-foot-10 Christie is a fireball of compact muscle. He spurts right at you after the whistle, typically gets a quick takedown and cranks in an array of pinning combinations.

He wrestles like he's in a hurry to go watch Netflix or start his homework. Christie has 26 pins with 20 in a minute or less and just one extending to the second period.

He joked, “I got to eat food or something.”

“In my eyes, that’s my goal is just go out there, go as hard as I could and get done as soon as possible,” he said.

So, just what is it?

Is it strength, leverage, angles, technique?

“Honestly, I think it’s a bit of everything,” Christie said. “You know, you need the strength to follow up to keep him there, but you also need the technique and leverage to get him to the positions. So it all plays together.

“I think it’s not just my wrestling style but just me being non-stop. Just want to keep going and keep going and the kid will end up breaking and going to his back. So, that’s what my mindset is, too. I never look for the pin, but it just shows up and I take it.”

Christie credits junior Danny Internoscia who he trains with, but also has a secret weapon – volunteer assistant Bryan McLaughlin. Fans know the name well. He wrestled for Carbone and assistant Joe Liquori at Woodbridge and was a two-time state placewinner and wrestled at Drexel.

“Brian in the room could be the alpha and McLaughlin tames him,” Carbone said. “Brian understands that when McLaughlin gets going, he still is a two-time NCAA Division 1 qualifier and he can pick it up a notch. So Brian’s going to be an amazing college wrestler but right now McLaughlin keeps him level. He keeps him tamed. Like he knows that in order to go, I got to go 110 percent against McLaughlin, so McLaughlin is getting the best out of Brian whenever he’s there, which is nice.

“… You could see Brian is kind of making Dan raise his level and then the other Bryan is making Brian raise his level so everybody is getting better because of the room. So, it’s good.”

Christie is appreciative to work with McLaughlin.

“I always thought I was strong and I wrestled him,” Christie said, “and I’m just like, alright, there’s someone stronger. He's always non-stop. He’s the one kicking my (butt). Put me in the shape I am. He definitely is preparing me for the college wrestling style.”

McLaughlin, in turn, is happy to help and said Christie’s a “more action, less talk” type of athlete.

“I took what I learned in college and I just tried to pass it down to him as best as I can,” he said. “He’s probably the best pinner I’ve ever seen in high school. So I think he just kind of has an instinct that you can’t really teach someone.”

McLaughlin has been one of the few people to push Christie this season.

“We go six-minute matches all the time,” McLaughlin said. “So that’s kind of what we focus on in practice because he doesn’t get to see a lot of that in the matches right now.”

So, his conditioning will OK if he has a tight match in the postseason?

“Yup,” McLaughlin said, “he’ll be ready.”

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ wrestling: St. Joseph's Brian Christie gets 100 career pins