It has been a long and winding road for Rider University wrestler Sammy Alvarez, but he did finally achieve his reward at this year’s Division I NCAA Wrestling Championships in Philadelphia. A graduate student from Garfield who wrestled in high school at St. Joseph’s Montvale, Alvarez became an All-American for the first time when he won his third straight match in the 149-pound wrestle-backs on Friday evening at the Wells Fargo Center. “From fourth grade to today present moment, hours and hours and hours and months and days and years that have been poured into this,” Alvarez said late Friday night in an interview with InterMat. “There’s not much I feel besides excitement for everyone who poured resources into me.” For good measure, he then capped off his excellent showing by winning his seventh/eighth place match on Saturday afternoon. By finishing in the top eight, Alvarez became the 21st All-American in Rider’s history and the 10th Rider wrestle to do so in the last 11 seasons. “I was written off,” Alvarez said. “Alvarez doesn’t work hard, he’s not disciplined, he’s this (or) that … they wrote to me but I never wrote back.” What Alvarez also did is become the only All-American from the Rider, Rutgers and Princeton programs at this year’s nationals. The only other two to come close were Rutgers’ 125-pounder Dean Peterson and his teammate Dylan Shawver at 133. Both lost in the blood round Friday to come up one win short of being in the top eight. It was a disappointing tourney for Rutgers, which was shut out after previously producing at least two All-Americans in nine of the last 10 years. In his blood round match, Alvarez’s dominated former Oklahoma State teammate Jordan William of Arkansas Little Rock by the score of 5-0. Alvarez, who originally got his collegiate career underway at Rutgers, then lost a 4-2 decision to No. 12 Ethan Stiles of Oregon State to drop down into the seventh/eighth match. Not to be deterred, he bounced right back with a 9-6 sudden victory over Gavin Drexler of North Dakota State to finish his career with a double-leg takedown and his last season with a record of 25-7. “Amen,” Alvarez said. “I did it.” Heading into Saturday night’s finals, Penn State had already locked up its 10th national title in 12 years. It also became just the second team to have 10 All-Americans in the same year. ...read more read less