http://papreplive.com/blog/2016/02/22/methactons-blue-finds-home-wrestling-after-being-orphan-in-philippines/

WORCESTER >> Ask Corey Blue about his childhood memories, and all he can recall is living in the streets.

Born Melchor De la Rosa, Jr., Blue was abandoned by his birth father, a lover of motorcycles, who then moved to another part of the country. It is believed his birth mother is dead. And the young man has no memories of her.

Blue’s life consisted of trying to stay alive while looking after his three sisters in the streets of San Fernando, Pampanga in the Philippines. It is believed there was a fourth sister, but that, like most personal information about Blue, cannot be confirmed.

There were no meals, unless Blue stole or begged for enough money to buy food, or rummaged successfully through enough garbage to locate something edible.

And while nourishment was in short supply, danger was everywhere.

Hunger was a constant worry, but no more than the men who would think nothing of grabbing an unaccompanied child, force him to drink beer or whiskey and then laugh as the child stumbled helplessly around on the sidewalk.

Worse, there were those who would not think twice about murdering the wild children of the streets, then selling their internal organs on the black market.

These were Blue’s everyday realities.

Then came a day when Blue and his sisters were rounded up and placed in a local orphanage by adults who were concerned about their well being.

With that came a three- or four-year addition to the young man’s age, as it has been found that older children stand a better chance of being adopted than the younger.

And while Blue and his sisters were out of danger from life in the streets, there were still concerns.

Older children were not above bullying the young.

One such bully indoctrinated Blue into the orphanage by hitting him in the head with a rock, a wound that produced a large scar on his forehead that Blue still bears.

One by one, the children in the de la Rosa family were placed in homes.

Blue’s three sisters were all adopted.

It took some time, but Corey was finally adopted by the Blue family from the Lansdale area.

“We all ended up in different families,” Blue said. “(The orphanage) was better than living in the streets. We had food and we had shelter, but I didn’t really like it there.

“I know I would have been dead by now if I hadn’t gone to the orphanage, but it was still dangerous. There were bullies who would try and beat you up every day. “When I was living in the street, I had to worry about finding food and finding shelter. It was just about trying to survive every day.”

Ironically, before being placed in the orphanage, Blue saw his father one more time.

Digging in a garbage can, Blue was approached by his father, who berated him for embarrassing the family by rummaging in trash.

When his adoption went through in late 2009, Blue found himself traveling to the United States, which he was shocked to discover was covered by a large white cloud, or something most people would call snow.

“In my country it was either raining or hot, or both,” Blue said.

His life with the Blue family was better than his live-by-the-minute existence in the Philippines. But the young man was still not satisfied.

The woman who gave him his name had a difficult time physically tending to his needs. His brand-new “brother” was not much help, either.

It appeared Blue was headed for another unsatisfying chapter in his very dark life.

Branded a behavioral problem, Blue was not adjusting well to his new environment.

But as it happened, his life was about to take a major turn for the better.

Joanna Morabito, the wife of well-known area bread maker Mike Morabito and the Vice-President of Morabito Baking Company, was brought in to tutor Blue, and in time found he was a young man that needed more than just tutoring. He needed a family.

“He was a nice young man, a happy kid, very upbeat. But he had no ideas of boundaries,” Morabito said. “He would just go. You’d turn around and he was gone. He was pretty wild, and still is.”

But through the trying times, a connection had been made. Morabito knew of Blue’s dissatisfaction with his adopted family, and approached Mrs. Blue about the possibility of the Morabito family taking a more permanent role in his life.

After some time, Mrs. Blue relented, and Mike and Joanna Morabito became Blue’s legal guardians. Their hope is to soon make him their son.

They immediately went about trying to make the young man’s life better.

That meant giving him a sense of family. But even such mundane things as taking Blue in public meant knowing it was absolutely necessary to know his location at all times.

“We’d take him somewhere, we’d turn around and he was gone,” Morabito said with a laugh. “We took him to a Villanova basketball game and he disappeared, and we found him dancing with the Villanova dance team.

“He loves to dance.”

There was also the process of trying to establish Blue’s age, which was obviously incorrect.

“You could tell the age we were told was totally wrong,” Morabito said. “We took him to a dentist and a doctor to help establish his age.”

He was placed in Methacton High School as a 17-year old junior when, in fact, he was actually a 13-year old still possessing his baby teeth.

Mike Morabito also saw the athleticism Blue possessed and steered him towards sports. Baseball was one, although Blue’s sense of ownership was questionable.

“We got him brand-new glasses for baseball,” Morabito said, “and he gave them away.”

But ultimately it was wrestling that grabbed the young man — and wouldn’t let go.

“I got a call from Mike telling me he thought this kid could be a good wrestler,” recalled Warriors head wrestling coach A.J. Maida. “I get calls like that all the time, fathers and uncles telling me how good their kids are.

“I told him, like I tell all of them, bring him in for practice. Most times, when I tell somebody that their kid never shows up. But Corey was there.”

And he hasn’t left. In fact, with a winning record heading into the postseason, Blue could, providing he receives the extra years of eligibility the Morabitos have petitioned for, wind up being around for a couple more years.

In the meantime, Blue is enjoying his life as a wrestler.

“Wrestling is fun,” he said, “whether you’re getting beat up or beating up somebody else.”

He’s also enjoying being a member of the Morabito clan.

He recently was given a legal birthday (August 28) and he and his three new brothers are extremely close, especially Anthony Morabito, now a pitcher at Georgetown University.

“Corey said that when he made the varsity in wrestling it was the same happiness he felt on the street when he found money,” Morabito said. “It’s been wonderful. Now he knows what it’s like to have a dad.

“It was an uphill struggle, but I feel he was always meant to be in this family.”

As for Blue, hopefully soon to be a legal member of the Morabito family, it’s finally time to smile.

“I’ve always called (Mike and Joanna) Mama Toro and Papa Toro,” he said. “I’m hoping one day to call them Mom and Pops.”

http://papreplive.com/blog/2016/01/30/18418/

BUCKINGHAM >> No, neither Methacton nor Pottsgrove is going to have much of an impact on the Pioneer Athletic Conference championship chase this season.
But outside the PAC, the Warriors and Falcons can more than hold their own.
In fact, they can wind up wrestling each other in a dual-meet tournament final.
Not coincidentally, Methacton and Pottsgrove just happened to meet in the finals of Saturday’s Central Bucks East Invitational.
And while the Warriors emerged with a 39-24 victory and the tournament championship plaque, it’s safe to say the rivals — who will meet in a PAC dual meet on Wednesday — are sometimes happy not to be banging heads with the Boyertowns and Owen J. Roberts of the world.
“Hey, Boyertown might be the best team in the state,” said Falcons head coach Jeff Madden of the quality of the conference Pottsgrove calls home. “And both Spring-Ford and Owen J. are very good.
“It’s not always possible to go for a league title, so getting to the finals in a tournament like this was big for us.
“I thought we wrestled real well today, especially somebody like Ryan Finn, who beat two quality kids (William Tennent’s David McCoy and Springfield-Delco’s Chris Sciarrino), and he went up a weight class to wrestle (McCoy).”
In the finals, the Falcons didn’t fare as well, but Madden chose to give Methacton credit for that result.
“They’re real good, especially through the middle part of their lineup,” the coach said. “We have to wrestle them again this week, so we’d better figure something out before then.”
As for the Warriors’ success, they seemed to manage their best wrestling of the day in a 30-24 semifinal win over Central Bucks East, where they seemed to get exactly what they needed out of each bout.
“Hey, we’re trying to win and do our best,” said Warriors senior middleweight Dylan Henry, who had three falls on the day. “For us to do that as a team, everybody has a job to do and everybody has to do their job.
“We did that today, and that’s why we won.”
In the finals, the Warriors bolted to a 30-3 lead. And even though the Falcons would win five of the remaining seven bouts, they would come up short.
“Neither of us are at the top of the PAC-10,” said Methacton head coach A.J. Maida, “but I think that it’s kind of nice that in a tournament full of Suburban One teams that we can be 1-2.”
Speaking of the Suburban One League, host Central Bucks East managed a third-place finish in the tournament, while Wissahickon and William Tennent did not fare as well.
Wissahickon managed a 1-3 mark, with its lone victory coming at the expense of Tennent, while the Panthers finished seventh, outlasting Delaware school Appoquinimink in the 7-8 match.
Wissahickon head coach Anthony Stagliano said he was happy with the Trojans’ finish, especially considering three starters were out of the lineup.
“My goal was for us to finish 2-2,” he said, “so we fell short of that. But we had those starters out.
“I take these types of dual meets differently than most coaches. I try and get the kids matches so that we can talk about getting a team effort.”

http://papreplive.com/wrestling/2016/01/07/numbers-game-depth-drives-methacton-past-upper-perkiomen-45-22/

FAIRVIEW VILLAGE >> There was no denying Upper Perkiomen had the edge — albeit a slight one — in quality Thursday.

Methacton’s Corey Blue throws Upper Perkiomen’s Jared Kuhns during their bout at 106 Thursday. Kuhns won 10-2.

Quantity, however, proved to be a different story. And in their Pioneer Athletic Conference match with Methacton, quantity — moreso, a shortage of it — played a big part in the Warriors’ 45-22 victory.

The Indians (0-2 league, 0-3 overall) had a 22-21 lead in 10 contested weights, the bulk of it collected in the second half of the lineup from 170 to 106. But that was offset by forfeits in four classes, a 24-point swing that helped the Warriors (2-1, 3-2) get a PAC victory in the wake of Wednesday’s loss to Spring-Ford.

“We expect to get Jarek Svanson (at 113) back Saturday, and Mike Lockhoff back at 160 soon,” head coach Sam Walters said, referencing two of the weights UP wasn’t able to fill. “Otherwise, we got low numbers. We have to wrestle with the guys we’ve got.”

A.J. Maida can identify with the situation his UP counterpart is facing. The Methacton mat boss remembers his program being in that position at the start of the 2014-15 season, and is understandably more comfortable having enough bodies to fill out a lineup.

“We still have young guys who aren’t ready,” Maida said of his underclassmen-heavy roster. “But with Upper Perk’s numbers issue, we were able to hide some of that.”

The Indians’ first two forfeits at 126 and 132, following William Rebert’s clock-beating first-period pin in the 120-pound opener, got Methacton rolling toward a 33-0 lead at the halfway point in the lineup. A third forfeit, to Sayer Campbell at 160, capped the run after Dylan Henry, Michael Blakemore and Bryce Reddington all scored close decisions between 138 and 152.

“This is the second year in a row we have one senior,” Maida said. “So the lessons we’re teaching the kids aren’t so much about wrestling as how to be a member of a team … the expectations put on a high-school athlete.”

Mike Felix got Upper Perk on the scoreboard at 170 with a 6-3 decision of Brendan Marion. The Indians then bookended pins by Mickey Hopkins (182) and Mike Modugno (220) around Bill Brower’s 5-2 decision of Leland Mersky at 195 to cut the Warriors’ lead to 33-18. With three weights still to be wrestled, the visitors stayed in mathematical reach of the lead.

Upper Perkiomen’s Billy Brower takes down Methacton’s Leland Mersky at 195 Thursday. Brower won 5-2. (Austin Hertzog – Digital First Media)

That ended 52 seconds into the 285-pound bout, though, when Joe Donahue got the slap on Robert Rosado and Methacton got a clinching 39-18 point spread. From there, UP’s Jared Kuhns posted a 10-2 major decision on Corey Blue at 106 before William Donovan drew the match-closing forfeit at 113.

“We’ve asked Joe to keep things simple,” Maida said. “This is his second year wrestling varsity, but he knows what he has to do to win.”

Walters and his UP coaching staff, in the meantime, have one eye toward the future while focusing the other on the here and now.

“We have an eighth-grade class with 15 kids,” he said, “and the following year, we have the same numbers.

“This year we’re young and have low numbers. That’s a tough combination,” Walters added. “But the kids are doing well. I just ask them to compete. Tonight, they did better than last night (66-4 loss to Boyertown).”

Upper Perkiomen’s Mickey Hopkins, top, pins Methacton’s Salaam McNair at 182 Thursday. (Austin Hertzog – Digital First Media)

Maida is looking for a similar effort from his charges, whose next action will be next Wednesday (Jan. 13) at Owen J. Roberts.

“We have kids who know how to wrestle,” he said. “What we need is 14 kids who are rowing the boat in the same direction. We’re certainly in a better place on January 7, 2016 than we were on January 7, 2015. That shows the kids are improving.”

NOTES >> Andrew Balek and Jorge Carmona were the recipients of Methacton’s forfeits at 126 and 132, respectively. … Reddington and Marion remain Methacton’s winningest wrestlers with respective 13-2 and 11-6 records. On the Upper Perk side, Modugno upped his season mark to a team-best 11-4. … The Indians now head to Souderton for Saturday’s Big Red Duals.