Together, they merged to give Boyertown some notable accomplishments during the regular season this winter.
Now is the time for the individuals to step into the spotlight. The post-season tournament grind will get under way this weekend, and the Bears have a solid footing to start the next four weekends of competition … the overriding hope, as always, is to get as many grapplers as possible on the medal stand at Hershey.
“It’s more about advancing the kids, getting them the opportunity to place,” head coach Pete Ventresca said.
The seedings announced Thursday list nine Bears as tops in their weight classes. Spring-Ford — the defending PAC team champion — has two while Methacton, Owen J. Roberts and Pottstown have one apiece. Like many other leagues around Pennsylvania, the Pioneer Athletic Conference starts the process with its championship tournament. The circuit’s 10 teams will again convene at Boyertown in bids to advance as many wrestlers to the District 1-AAA West and 1-AA tourneys the following weekend … and to be crowned the PAC’s team champion.
Action in the PAC-10 tournament start 9:30 a.m. Saturday with pigtail and quarterfinal-round matches. It continues with semifinals and first-round consolations at 11:30 a.m., followed by consolation semifinals at 1:30 p.m.
The championship and consolation finals, and the 5-6 place bouts, will start at 4:15 p.m. following the 4 p.m. Parade of Champions.
Only six of the PAC’s 2015 individual champs are back, the other eight going the graduation route.
Boyertown has four of those defending champions, all of whom have earned top seeds: Jakob Campbell (113), Lucas Miller (126), Gregg Harvey (182) and Jordan Wood (220), Additionally, David Campbell (120, 31-8)), J.T. Cooley (138), Hunter Vogels (152, 22-6), Brody O’Connell (195, 23-13) and Tommy Killoran (285) are top seeds at their respective weights.
“We wrestle tough, quality competition,” Ventresca said. “If you beat guys who are top competitors, you get extra points. If you finish high in tournaments from past years, you get prestige points.
“We have guys who got a ton of points.”
Jakob Campbell (25-3), Miller (29-7), Harvey (40-5), Wood (36-1) and Killoran (30-7) made up Boyertown’s storied “Fab Five” that brought home medals from last year’s PIAA Championships — Wood’s gold at 220 the biggest plum. The quintet was in the lead this winter as the Bears scored championship “threepeats” in the Brian Bealer Memorial Bear Duals, PAC-10 regular season and District 1-AAA Duals Tournament. They also finished second as a team in the King of the Mountain, Beast of the East and PIAA Class AAA Team Tournament.
All but the Campbells and Cooley (25-14), who have each moved up one weight class this winter, are back in the brackets where they wrestled for Boyertown during the 2015 post-season.
“The kids I figured to be around where they are seeded were high on prestige points,” Ventresca said.
As a team last winter, Boyertown repeated as District 1-AAA West and Southeast AAA Regional champions before placing fourth at Hershey. The only team trophy it wasn’t able to claim was the PAC-10’s … a situation it hopes to correct this time around.
“We’re hoping to win it this year … take back the title, and run the gamut,” Ventresca said.
Spring-Ford, the team champion at last year’s PAC tournament, has one returning titlist in Steve Rice (28-3). But it has two top seeds in Rice (back at 170) and Brandon Meredith (106, 25-6)
Pottstown’s top seed is Saddiq Ibn-Mustafah (22-11) at 160. Owen J’s first seed is Ryan Resnick (28-6) at 132, and Methacton’s Bryce Reddington (22-2) — the PAC’s 132-pound champion one year ago — gets the top seed at 145.
Roberts boasts the most second seeds (five) of the PAC teams: Luke Resnick (26-5) at 106, Dan Mancini (22-8) at 126, Nick Duliakas (14-7) at 182, Xavier Ferrizzi (4-1) at 195 and Connor Mitchell (23-6) at 220. Pottstown has three — Bryant Wise (20-3) at 145, Mason Pennypacker (24-4) at 152, Jimmie Zazzi (19-9 at 285) — while Spring-Ford has a pair in Hunter Mitch (27-6) at 120 and Matt Krieble (17-6) at 138. Other second seeds are Boyertown’s Elijah Jones (20-10) at 170, Pope John Paul II’s Nick Yerger (19-4) at 132, Pottsgrove’s Ryan Finn (23-2) at 160 and Upper Perkiomen’s Jarek Svanson (19-9) at 113.
District 3-AAA
Daniel Boone drew two top seeds among its four high placements for the Second 4 tournament, which will be staged Saturday at Gov. Mifflin Intermediate School. Matches will start at 8 a.m., with the championship, third- and fifth-place finals going off at approximately 5:30 p.m.
Brenden Valverde (182) and Jesse Enck (220) were seeded atop their weight classes; both wrestlers scored championships for Boone during the BCIAA individual tournament held in mid-January at Reading High’s Geigle Complex. Owen Powell is a second seed at 138, and Joey Yohn claims the fifth seed at 145.
The top three wrestlers from each weight will qualify for the South Central AAA Regional tournament being held at Hersheypark Arena the weekend of Feb. 26-27.
PAISWT
The Pennsylvania Independent Schools Wrestling Tournament opens Friday at Malvern Prep, and continues into Saturday. Friday’s action starts with championship and first-round consolations at 4:30 p.m., continues with quarterfinals at 5 p.m. and with second-, third- and fourth-round consolations at 6 p.m.
The Hill School will join host Malvern at giving the tourney local flavor. The Blues recently had six wrestlers ranked in the Top 12 of their respective weight classes: Dymir Davis-Carruth (fourth at 220), Kyle Gorant (sixth at 132), Hakim Coles (eighth at 182), Will Hare (eighth at 285), Nolan Butcher (ninth at 16) and Zach Sheehan (11th at 138).
Saturday’s schedule has fifth-round and quarterfinal-round consolations at 9 a.m., sixth-round consis at 10;30 a.m., consolation finals for third, fifth and seventh places 11:30 a.m. and championship finals at 2 p.m.
The next level for the PAISWT advancers will be the National Prep Tournament at Lehigh University the weekend of Feb. 26-27.
