CLARION — After a very successful 16-5 dual meet season, the Curwensville Golden Tide wrestling team now turns its attention to the individual post-season.
The road to Hershey for the PIAA AA State Championships begins at Clarion University on Saturday February 26 when the District 9 AA Championships returns to the Waldo S. Tippin Gymnasium after a several year hiatus.
The goal for each wrestler will be to place in the top-4 and advance to the North West Regional tournament in Sharon the following weekend.
Fourteen teams will look to bring home the team title, but it’ll be hard to unseat the Brookville Raiders, winners of the last two and nine out the last 11 team titles since 2011.
Brookville tops the charts with six top seeds, while Brockway has three and the remaining four top seeds are represented by Cranberry, Kane, Port Allegany, and Johnsonburg.
The Tide did manage four number two seeds.
The top returner is defending 113 pound champ, and one of only two seniors competing for the Tide, Jake Carfley (20-5), who will compete once again at 113.
Sophomore Damian Brady (24-7) will go as the number two seed at 106, junior Nik Fegert (20-9) will go at 132, and sophomore Logan Aughenbaugh (19-6) gets the nod at 152. Fegert and Aughenbaugh will look to improve on their bronze medal finishes from a year ago.
Sophomore Alex Shaffer (14-9) is the three seed at 189.
Needing to match or better their four seed to advance to regionals are sophomore Ryder Kuklinskie (20-8) at 138 and senior Zach Shaffer (15-12) at 145. Kuklinskie was a runner-up last year.
The remaining seeded wrestlers for the Tide are the five-seed junior Chase Irwin (18-12) at 172, sixth seeded sophomore Trenton Guiher (17-9) at 215, and seven seeded junior JD Strong (4-10) at 160.
285 pounder Grady Hoyt (1-6) is unseeded and the Tide has no entries at 120 or 126 pounds.
TIME SCHEDULE FOR AA TOURNAMENT
9:30 A.M. – Round 1- Championship Preliminaries (3 mats) (Session I is round 1-6)
Round 2- Championship Quarter Finals & Consolation Round #1
Round 3- Consolation Round #2
Round 4- Championship Semi-Finals & Consolation Quarter Finals
Round 5- Consolation Semi-Finals
Round 6- 5th and 6th place matches (2 mats)
3:45 PM – Hall of Fame Inductions
4:00 P.M. – Parade of Champions for Championships (Finals only)
4:10 P.M. – Round 7- Championship & Consolation Finals (2 mats) (Session II is round 7)
The top seeds for the tourney are: 106 – Elijah Brosius (26-4), Cranberry, 113 – Weston Pisarchick (28-2), Brockway, 120 – Cole Householder (29-8), Brookville, 126 – Mark Palmer (25-7), Brockway, 132 – Owen Reinsel (35-2), Brookville, 138 – Brayden Kunselman (32-6), Brookville, 145 – Reece Bechakas (22-7), Kane, 152 – Caleb Furgeson (23-4), Port Allegany, 160 – Aiden Zimmerman (18-9), Johnsonburg, 172 – Easton Belfiore (22-11), Brookville, 189 – Jackson Zimmerman (18-3), Brookville, 215 – Bryce Rafferty (30-4), Brookville, and 285 – Gavin Thompson (28-3), Brockway.
Brackets, courtesy PA-Wrestling.com, can be found by clicking HERE