SHARON — The Curwensville Golden Tide wrestling team sent three Hershey-bound hopefuls to the North West AA Regionals at Sharon High School Friday night.
One, Zach Holland, reached the semifinals and is one win away from his first PIAA State Tournament, while the other two, Jacob Carfley and Jake McCracken, find themselves in the wrestlebacks needing to run off three wins in a row to reach the consolation finals and the top-4 finish necessary to move on to next week.
Holland (31-0), the District 9 champ, had a bye in the preliminary round and then faced Justin Boozer (27-12), the District 10 fourth place finisher, of Cochranton in the quarterfinals. Holland kept his undefeated season intact with a 7-2 victory to reach Saturday’s 138 pound semifinals.
Awaiting Holland is the District 10 runner-up, Alex Ischo (31-8) of Reynolds. Looming in the finals is a potential match-up with defending region champ and last year’s PIAA state runner-up Kenneth Kiser (38-2) of Saegertown.
At 106, Tide sophomore Carfley (26-11) won his preliminary round match over Nevada Koehler (21-13) of Greenville 7-0. In the quarterfinals Carfley was pinned by the District 10 champ Kane Kettering (28-6) of Reynolds.
Carfley will face Owen Hershelman (19-17) of Saegertown in his first round consolation bout.
At 170 pounds, junior Jake McCracken (24-8) also received a preliminary round bye and was then sent in to the wrestlebacks 2-0 by Cole Karpinski (36-5) of Greenville.
His first opponent with the season on the line will be Isaac Zimmerman (28-11) of Johnsonburg.
With 10 wrestlers in the semis, state power Reynolds is running away with the team race with 87 points. A distant second is District 9’s Brookville with five semifinalists and 59.5 points. Curwensville sits in 24th place, out of 41 teams represented, with nine team points.
Complete results courtesy PA-Wrestling.com can be found by clicking here.