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To say that the Tunkhannock wrestling team has had some bad luck this season would be an understatement.
Still, though, miraculously the Tigers are one of the top contenders in this weekend’s District 2 Class 2A Duals Tournament, which will be held today and Saturday.
A total of eight Wyoming Valley Conference squads will participate in district duals – four in Class 2A and four in 3A – at four different sites starting at 5:30 p.m. today before coming together on Saturday at Pittston Area High School for the remaining consolation duals and the finals. Each team will have a two-pound allowance today due to many schools not in session all week.
The season started for the Tigers with multiple successful grapplers from past years deciding to sit out the current campaign for various reasons.
After a solid finish at its home tournament, the Tunkhannock Holiday Classic, injuries started to pile up. And big injuries. First, state qualifier Dave Evans got hurt in a practice right after the tournament. Then former state qualifier and active WVC career wins leader Tommy Traver broke his leg. Senior Logan Hegedty and freshman Nick Marabell among others from the squad also lost time.
Now, the team is starting to heal little by little. Marabell returned last week. Evans is close to returning, and Traver, whose season looked to be over, is doing better. A lack of practice time due to weather could hurt the team once again. But most teams are in the same situation.
“Since Tommy’s injury and Logan’s, the latest one, we haven’t been able to practice. We wrestled Meyers on Monday and our conditioning wasn’t there,” Tigers coach Bob Hegedty said. “I think we’ve probably practiced four days in the last two weeks. So I don’t know what to expect.”
The Tigers will head to Lackawanna League top seed Blue Ridge tonight and open with LL No. 3 seed Scranton Prep. A win over the Cavaliers will mean a match against the winner of the Blue Ridge-Wyoming Area dual later in the evening.
On the other side of the Class 2A bracket is WVC top seed Lake-Lehman, which will open with Lackawanna nemesis Western Wayne, while Hanover Area faces Montrose in the other 2A quarterfinal at Lake-Lehman High School.
Too late for a rivalry?
It’s a possibility that Coughlin and Hazleton Area could meet in the Class 3A semifinals for the second straight season. The squads have put together a nice rivalry in that time. They are the last two Division 1 champions in the WVC and have combined to hold at least a share of the division crown in four of the last five years.
In the last four meetings, each team has won twice, which includes Coughlin sweeping two duals last season. In their dual in the regular season, the Crusaders gave the Cougars,the Division 1 champs, their closest WVC dual, only a 21-point margin.
Both squads will be at Hazleton Area tonight where the Cougars face West Scranton in the quarters and the Crusaders take on Abington Heights.
Scouting the Lackawanna League
Since 2011, the Lackawanna League has dominated the district duals tournament, winning 10 of 16 tournaments. In Class 2A, the LL has claimed seven of the last 10 duals titles.
One of the teams that is responsible for most of the league’s dominance is Western Wayne, which enters this season as the No. 4 seed from the league. The Wildcats have a new coach in Scott Rush as successful coach Dante Terenzio has moved on to District 11. The team’s troubles aren’t because of a lack of wrestlers as they only forfeit two or three weights, they just lack experience this season with the majority of athletes on the roster freshmen or sophomores.
LL Division 2 champ Blue Ridge has a pair of returning regional qualifiers in Nathaniel McArthur (126 pounds) and Adam Roe (152), who was district runner-up last season. Team-wise, Blue Ridge forfeited four weights in its last dual, and the 2A teams from the north could forfeit as many as five weights in a dual this weekend.
“It’s hard to gauge them because of the forfeits and stuff,” Hegedty said. “If you can field a full team, you have a pretty good chance. But I think the Lackawanna League is better than I’ve seen in the past.”
In Class 3A, Delaware Valley claimed its 11th Lackawanna League Division 1 title in 12 years with a win in the final match against Abington Heights to forge a shared championship. The Warriors defeated the Comets 33-24 in a dual that was clinched in the last bout on a pin by 126-pounder Preston Machado.