Early tournaments provide success stories

by News Item Staff

Posted on December 10, 2008

Wrestling season isn't even a week old and some area teams have already made a nice mark.

Line Mountain and Shamokin each had impressive performances at opening tournaments, and Southern Columbia, which is in the midst of what hopefully will be a resurrection of its program, had a solid performance at the Wilson Invitational Duals in Northampton County.

Line Mountain may have had the most impressive performance, with three individual champions and a fourth-place finish at the prestigious Top Hat Tournanent in Williamsport.

Ryan Burns, the transfer from Shamokin who had to sit out last season when Shamokin protested the circumstances of the transfer, made a very impressive return to competition, winning the 125-pound title, and he was joined in first place by sophomore Travis Erdman (135) and two-time state placewinner Jon Fausey (189).

Burns beat the No. 4 seed in his weight class on Friday, then stunned top seed and defending champion Simon Rice of Central Dauphin, who was third in the state in AAA at 112 last season, 2-1 in the semifinals. Burns put the finishing touch on with a 3-1 win in the finals over Drew Rebling of South Western.

Erdman, in winning a Top Hat title, did something his older brother, Tyler, last season's 119 AA state champ, never did. Travis was a 2-1 finals winner over Indian Valley's Tyler Bedelyon, and that came after a 3-2 overtime rideout win over top seed Luke Walker of Cumberland Valley in the semifinals.

Erdman credited his summer wrestling regimen, during which time he had close wins over both wrestlers as well, for helping him.

Fausey, last year's 171-pound Top Hat champ, beat Central Dauphin's Tony Dallago, a University of Illinois recruit and last year's 160-pound champ, 3-2 with a late escape.

The Eagles had three other placewinners — Ryan Klinger, fourth at 160; Josh Nguyen, sixth (152); and Carlos Zrake, eighth (140).

Indians crown four

Shamokin had four champs at the Darren Klingerman Invitational at Bloomsburg, with Brandon Pesarchick (130), Derek Shingara (135), Matt Marcheski (140) and Nick Domanski (189) taking firsts.

Josh Lahr (125) and Leon Supsic (145) were second, with Lahr dropping a tough 6-3 decision to three-time state placewinner David Fogle of Forest Hills. Wes Tillett fought back from an opening round loss to take third at 285.

The Indians placed second as a team to Forest Hills, but were hurt by having several top seeds who advanced through the opening round by bye, thus not earning any team points.

Tigers win three

Southern equaled its win total of last season by going 3-2 at the Wilson Invitational Duals. The Tigers tied Upper Merion 33-33, and won on criteria F (most first match points scored). They beat powerful Blair Academy's 'B' team, 42-28, lost to Wilson, 60-12, beat Salisbury, 46-18, and lost to East Stroudsburg North, 38-30.

The Tigers were 3-18 last season.

Logan Mensinger (135) was 5-0 with three pins for the Tigers.

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