Hawks eye more gold at districts
After winning the team wrestling title in Hershey two weeks ago, Bethlehem Catholic is back on the hunt for more gold medals this weekend when the District 11 3A wrestling tournament takes place at Liberty’s Memorial Gymnasium.
The Golden Hawks were team champs at districts last year and advanced all 13 wrestlers to regionals a year ago and look to replicate those type of results again this weekend when action begins Friday afternoon.
“Our expectations are that everyone competes appropriately,” said head coach Mike Cole. “We expect them to execute on the skills we have practiced and with the mindset we practiced. If they all compete like we have trained for they will over achieve. The key goal is for them individually to make it to regionals. Everything resets from there.”
This week’s projected lineup for the Hawks includes Louden Hower (107); Reef Dillard (114); Keanu Dillard (121); Ryder Campbell (127); Mason Thomas (133); Marco Frinzi (139); Shane McFillin (145); Kollin Rath (152); Charlie Scanlan (160); Dario Cruz (172); James Deluise (189); Jacob Lance (215) and Grant Mulhern (HWT).
Keanu Dillard, Rath and Scanlan return as defending champions from a year ago, while McFillin was a runner-up last year.
Ryder Campbell (third place) and James Deluise (fifth place) also are returning medalists for the Hawks.
Rath enters the postseason as the Hawks top dog, as the junior has won two district and regional crowns already, as well as a state championship last season.
Dillard swept the postseason last year en route to winning a state championship as a freshman and is poised to make another run.
“Mindset has been good since team states,” said Cole of the team’s focus the past two weeks. “We will be grinding hard for the next few days continuing our climb to the peak of our performance.”
Wrestling gets underway Friday at 5 p.m. with quarterfinals set for no later than 6:30 p.m. Saturday’s schedule has semifinals kicking off no later than 10:15 a.m. Consolation finals are slated for 3 p.m. with 3A and 2A finals taking place simultaneously at 4:45 p.m.