In this past weekend’s District XI individual wrestling tournament at Liberty, the Whitehall grapplers finished 7th in the team standings, their highest finish since 2006.

Head coach Tim Cunningham assessed the performance, “The team wrestled really well this whole weekend. The kids came in here and wrestled to the best of their ability. They trained hard for four weeks, worked on the little things. To be honest, this is probably the most proud of a team that I’ve been in a long time.”

While Cunningham is proud of his squad, the Zephyr athletic community can be proud of their head coach. Cunningham was selected as the District XI AAA Coach of the Year by his peers.

Senior 189-pounder Melquan Warren led the way, reaching the district final. After a pair of pins in the opening round and the quarterfinals, he faced off with Nazareth’s Marco Malerba in the semis. Malerba scored a takedown with 33 seconds left to go up 6-5. As the clock ticked under 10, Warren, needing an escape to force overtime, instead scored a reversal and 2 nearfall points to punch his ticket to the Parade of Champions.

Warren was pinned by Parkland’s Adrian Gacek, in part due to the magnitude of the situation. He explained, “It was weird walking out, shaking hands, it was a surreal experience. It definitely got in my head.” He continued, “I’ve been working hard since last year. I think I deserved to be out there, it just didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.”

Cunningham concurred, “Mel was under the lights there and you could tell it got to him a little bit. He’ll be ready for next week. That’s our job as coaches to get these kids ready and hopefully we do a little bit better job for Mel this week and make those adjustments.”

Joining Warren at regionals will be freshman 107-pounder Wilmont Kai. Kai also had a couple of pins to start the tournament before running into Bethlehem Catholic’s nationally-ranked freshman Keanu Dillard. He reached the consolation final with a 7-4 decision over Liberty’s Jasiah Pagan before finishing fourth after a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Nazareth’s Remy Trach.

Damond Pascoe (121) and James Hopkins (215) both medaled, finishing sixth at their respective weights, one spot out of qualifying for regionals.

Every Zephyr wrestler in the tournament scored at least one win and advanced to Saturday to help contribute to the school’s place in the team standings.

The weekend, Warren and Kai will attempt to finish in the top 4 in their weight classes and advance to states. It will be a daunting challenge for Kai with District 2 adding some high-quality wrestlers to the field at 107.

Warren has a relatively easy path to the semifinals at his weight. There he will likely face either a rematch with Malerba or Abington Heights’ Caleb Marzolino, the 2023 District 2 champion and a state qualifier at 172 last year.