BROCKWAY — If the final placings at all resemble the seeds for the District 9-AAA Wrestling Championships, the team race is already over. The battle will be for second place.
The defending champion DuBois Beavers claimed eight of the 14 number one seeds, while none of the other schools could lay claim to more than two.
Earning number one seeds for the Clearfield Bisons were junior teammates Christian Stone (22-5) at 120 pounds and Nolan Barger (25-3) at 145 pounds. Each has already picked up two district titles – Stone at 103 and 112, and Barger at 125 and 130.
The nearly identical career paths of these classmates continues as each is favored to pick up their third title. Stone’s career mark going into his third post season is 88-20, while Barger sits at 87-23.
The Bisons were also able to garner three second seeds – Noah Cline (10-13) at 106, Dylan Graham (19-10) at 126 and Jordan Lancaster (12-15) at 285. Lancaster is the lone senior among the five Bisons predicted to reach Saturday night’s championship bouts.
The top-3 finishers in each weight class will advance to the Northwest Regional Championships in Altoona on March 2 and 3.
Therefore, Clearfield’s trio of number three seeds need to match their seed to move on – Jake Lancaster (5-7) at 138, Kody Hepfer (5-17) at 160, and Devin Sinclair (1-18) at 195.
Other Bisons looking to compete on Saturday are Frank Aveni (10-16) at 132, Mike Beck (2-16) at 152, Garrett Timko (4-17) at 182, and Shane Billings (0-16) at 220.
Clearfield has no entries at 113 or 170 pounds.
The eight number one seeds for DuBois are Bryce Swauger (27-8) at 106, Anthony Vizza (25-9) at 113, Garrett Brown (26-8) at 126, Shane Marshall (19-10) at 160, Geno Morelli (27-3) at 170, Landon Hanna (27-2) at 195, Nick Davido (8-4) at 220, and Kyle Dixon (16-12) at 285.
St. Marys was the other school other than Clearfield to land more than one top seed – Sam Miller (20-10) at 138 and Joe McLaughlin (20-8 at 182.
The last two number one seeds are Bradford’s Zach Britton (26-2) at 132 and Punxsutawney’s Seth Spack (22-3) at 152.
Returning district champions, other than Stone and Barger from Clearfield, are Garrett Brown who won at 119 last year, Tom Sleigh of DuBois, winner at 135 last year and number two seed to Barger this year, and Joe McLaughlin, who won at 189 last year.
Spack won the 112 pound crown in 2010 and also earned the Oustanding Wrestler Award but was defeated by Sleigh in 2011’s final at 135.
Action gets underway Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. with the quarterfinals, followed by the semifinals at 12:o0 noon. The all-important consolation finals are scheduled for 5:00 p.m. The Parade of Champions is set for 6:30 p.m., then the AAA and AA Finals will commence at the same time.
Complete AAA brackets courtesy Bob Imhof and Bob’s Corner on the crossfacewrestling.net website: http://crossfacewrestling.net/Documents/2012%20District%20IX%20Class%20AAA%20Tournament%20Results.pdf