Chad Beller will be heading to this weekend’s state tournament.

After taking gold in the District 11 tournament, Beller had to settle for a silver in the Southeast Regional finals.

Beller fell to top-seed Jason Singer of Faith Christian Academy, 11-7.

“Chad Beller had a great tournament at regionals taking second place after losing 11-7 in the finals to a very tough wrestler,” said head coach Jonathan Reed. “He continued fighting the entire match after getting taken down a couple times.”

But Beller battled back in the third period and scored some points, something he can perhaps build on if he faces Singer again in Hershey.

“He got a takedown of his own in the third period which gives us some confidence we can score on him if we see him again this coming weekend at the PIAA state wrestling tournament,” Reed said. “His goal was to take top-3, which puts him a better spot in the state bracket.”

Beller was sixth at regionals last year, so Reed was happy with the improvement. Beller punched his ticket to states on Friday night when he won his quarterfinal match by technical fall, putting him in the semifinals and guaranteeing him a top-6 spot. Beller then wrestled and won his semifinal match by the score of 8-6 in a very tough match against Dante Burns of Conwell-Egan, who knocked him out of the state tournament last year.

“It was great to see him beat a kid who ended his season last year in Hershey,” Reed said. “Now we look forward to the week ahead and the state tournament. His goal has always been bringing home a medal from this tough tournament. If he wrestles to his potential he should be able to reach that goal. You just have to take one match at a time and can’t take anyone lightly.

“The nice thing is he wrestled here last year so his nerves shouldn’t be as bad when you are wrestling in the toughest state tournaments in the country.”

Unfortunately, teammate Mikhail Hartranft won’t be making the trip with Beller. Hartranft lost his two matches, including a heartbreaking, sudden death overtime contest.

“Mikhail had an excellent career at Catty and it’s been a pleasure coaching him throughout his career dating back to his early days in the youth program,” Reed said. “I know he was hoping to make it back to the state tournament like last year but he was in a very difficult bracket at regionals which actually had two returning state championship in it.”

While Hartranft ends his high school career, he’s already looking forward to the next stage as he’ll wrestle at Wilkes with his brother, Jaryn.

“Regionals was obviously not planned the way I wanted it to go. My high school career ended in sudden victory off a penalty point,” Hartranft said. “I don’t think I wrestled to my best performance and it sucks. It’s definitely a hard pill to swallow. Wrestling has been my entire life and I’m really fortunate to have wrestled for this town.”