Eric Thompson ’94
Career Record: 117-23, 2x D11 Champ, 3x NE Regional Champ, State Medalist
Tournament Championships: 2x Manheim Champ, Crestwood Champ
1994 – 160 lbs.: District Champ, Regional Champ, State Third (38-2)
1993 – 160 lbs.: District Champ, Regional Champ (33-2)
1992 – 152 lbs.: District Runner-Up, Regional Champ (32-6)
1991 – 145 lbs.: (14-13)
Eric Thompson, son of Phillipsburg star and New Jersey state champion Jack Thompson, made a name for himself on the Easton side of the river as a staple of the Red Rovers middle weights in the early 1990s.
Thompson broke into the lineup as a freshman, the heaviest Red Rover ninth grader to earn a spot in the lineup, and was immediately an impact wrestler. He medaled at the Crestwood Invitational to open the season, and took sixth at Manheim. He won 13 regular season matches for the Rovers before a 1-2 showing at his first D11 championships. As a sophomore, Thompson won the Crestwood Invitational, beating Jaosn Naugle (Lake Lehman) 9-7 in the finals. He followed that with a third place finish at Manheim. He went 18-2 in dual meets, including a win over future state champ John Sallit (Dieruff) and only falling locally to rival Terry Kassis (Liberty). At the D11 tournament, Thompson posted a pair of falls in under a minute to make the semifinals, where he handled Craig Falcone (Bangor), 3-0. In the finals, he had a rematch with Kassis, but after trading escapes during regulation and a scorless overtime, Kassis rode out Thompson to win the D11 title. The following week at Northeast Regionals, Thompson would get his revenge. After scoring 44 points in his first three matches, Thompson kept his offense going with a pair of takedowns in a 6-5 win over Kassis for a Regional title. At the state tournament, Thompson dropped a wild 12-10 match to Gary Barnhardt (CB West) in his opening bout. After majoring Chris Yock (North Allegheny) in his first wrestle-back, he had a fourth match with Kassis, this time with a state medal on the line. Kassis broke a 1-1 tie in the third period with a takedown of Thompson to leave the Red Rover sophomore off of the medal stand with a 3-2 loss.
As a junior, Thompson started the season with six straight dual wins, then bonused his way through the field at Manheim for his first championship in the Christmas tournament. He had Easton’s lone pin in a 27-27 tie with Canon McMillan at the Reilly Duals. He pinned future state champion Curt Reid (Shikellamy) to propel Easton past the Braves in a 29-28 dual meet win. He knocked off rival Craig Fenstermaker (Northampton) to prevent Easton from getting shut out by the Konkrete Kids in their regular season dual. He went into the postseason 25-0. At the D11 tournament, he opened with a fall and a major before beating Rich Kutzler (Northampton) in the semifinals. In his second D11 final, Thompson took Mark Miller (Stroudsburg) down repeatedly in an 18-13 win. The following weekend, he won his second straight Northeast Regional title, beating Matt McCollum (Shikellamy) 7-3, John Flamish (Dieruff) 11-6, and Kris Everett (Coughlin) 10-6 for the title. He ran his unbeaten streak to 33 matches with a second period fall over Mark Appleton (West Chester East) in the opening round. Thompson met his match in Neil Barnes (Dallastown), a future NCAA qualifier who would go on to win the state title in this bracket. In a match up of the top two ranked wrestlers in the state, Thompson forced a stalling call with 40 seconds left to tie the match at three. But Thompson took an ill advised shot and was pancaked to his back for five points, and lost a devastating 8-3 bout. In his first wrestle-back, he lost to future state champ Bret Ruth (Oil City), 9-7 to finish off of the podium for the second straight season.
Thompson had one of the finest senior seasons of any Easton athlete in school history. That fall, he was the first team All State running back, as he broke the Easton record with 30 touchdowns and led th Red Rovers to a D11 title and PIAA semifinal. His season on the mats started with a bang, as he pinned South Carolina state champion Nick Debendetto (Rock Hill) in the first period as Easton ended Rock Hill’s long winning streak with a 49-15 thrashing at the Elite Duals. After five falls through December, Thompson won his second Manheim title with a 7-5 win over Jim Patterson (Greensburg-Salem). He picked up four more pins in early January, before an exciting 3-2 win over Craig Fenstermaker in Easton’s dual with Northampton to move to 2-0 against the KKid star. Thompson’s fall over Jason Pierce (Philipsburg) put Easton in a position to win the dual at heavyweight. Thompson made it down to 160 for D11 Duals, where he defeated future NCAA All American and state champion Travis Doto (Nazareth) in semifinals, 14-7. However, Thompson and the Rovers were knocked off by Northampton in finals, with Fenstermaker getting his first career win over Thompson, 4-3, as the KKids rolled 35-12. In the D11 tournament, Thompson earned major decisions in his first two matches, then knocked off John Flamish (Dieruff) 10-8 in semis and Jason Davis (Northampton) 13-4 in the finals to win his second D11 title. The following week, Thompson joined Jack Cuvo and Rocky Creazzo as the only Rovers with at least three Northeast Regional titles. He did so by majoring all three of his opponents, a 13-4 win over Dave Rohrbach (Coughlin), a 15-4 win over Mike Peleschak (North Schuylkill), and a 12-4 win over Flamish. It was the second straight year Thompson was undefeated going into the state tournament. In his first round match, Thompson hammered Adam Bachman (Council Rock) 16-4 to set up the marquee quarterfinal of the tournament. In the unlucky draw of Regional 1st vs Regional 1st, Thompson matched up with two-time state runner-up Keilan O’Daniel (Canon McMillan) in the de facto state final. Thompson and O’Daniel traded takedowns in the first period and the match was 3-3 after one. But O’Daniel scored a pair of takedowns within 40 seconds of each other in the second period to pull away from Thompson, and finished the match with a 12-6 win. O’Daniel would go on to claim his first state title. Thompson rebounded, majoring Chad Liott (Hatboro-Horsham) to clinch his first state medal. He ripped through the rest of the back sdie, beating Kyle Rosenbloom (Marple-Newtown), Dave Murray (Jersey Shore), and Rob Gordon (Hempfield Area) to earn a bronze medal as the third place finisher at 160
History of Easton Wrestling 