BROCKWAY — Seven Curwensville Area High School wrestlers received seeds for this weekend’s District 9 Class AA Tournament during the seedings and pairings meeting of head coaches Tuesday night in the Brockway Area High School.
Sophomore Jake Lancaster, No. 2 at 126 pounds, is the Golden Tide’s highest seed.
Junior Tyler Mays is No. 3 at 120 and sophomore Sam Bressler is No. 4 at 106.
Those three would qualify for the Northwest Region Tournament if successfully meeting or exceeding their seeds Friday and Saturday in Tippin Gym on the Clarion University campus.
Curwensville’s other four seeds would have some work to do to advance.
Junior Trey McKenzie at 145 and senior Austin Pollick at 182 are fifth seeds, while junior Rick Magnuson at No. 6 at 220 and senior Nate Wriglesworth is No. 7 at 170.
District 9’s top four survivors and District 10’s top six finishers will make up the brackets for the regional tourney at Sharon High School March 1-2.
Five returning champions are among the No. 1 seeds for the 16-team District 9 Class AA Tournament.
They are Willis Gruver of Redbank Valley at 113, Brock Zacherl of Brookville at 138, Kyle Bova of Coudersport at 152, Evan Delong of Kane at 160 and three-time champ Alex Gular of Port Allegany at 170.
Gruver, Zacherl, Bova and Gular are back at the same weights, while Delong has moved up from 145.
Kane’s Cody Blankenship, who won the gold medal at 106 a year ago, is the No. 2 seed behind Gruver at 113.
Also seeded No. 1 are Taylor Ortiz of Brookville at 106, Trent Neely of Smethport at 120, Cole Clever of Brookville at 126, Karl Lightner of Smethport at 132, Ty Haines of Redbank Valley at 145, Aaron Hook of Redbank Valley at 182, Jake Wichert of Oswayo Valley at 195, Cal Haines of Redbank Valley at 220 and Nick Budd of Port Allegany at 285.
Neely is a former champ, having won gold at 106 in 2011.
Redbank Valley has the most seeded wrestlers, 13. Brookville and Port Allegany boast 11 apiece, and Smethport has 10.
Fans should note starting times have changed because the Class AAA field has been expanded with the addition of four teams from District 4.
Class AA action will begin on three mats at noon Friday with preliminaries, followed by quarterfinals and prelim and second round consolations.
On Saturday, the championship semifinals and consolation quarterfinals will get under way at 9:30 a.m. with consolation semifinals to follow the 11 a.m. session of Class AA A semis and consy quarters.
Consolation finals for both classes are set for 5:30 p.m.
The Parade of Champions at 6:30 will precede the finals.
Tickets are $5 for adults and $2 for students per sessions. Series tickets will be available at $15 for adults and $6 for students.
The complete brackets can be found here courtesy Bob Imhof’s Ridgway wrestling website: http://ridgwaywrestling.com/uploads/2013_District_IX_Class_AA_Wrestling_Brackets.pdf