BROOKVILLE — At the District 9 AA Wrestling seeding meeting at Brookville High School on Sunday, the Curwensville Golden Tide wrestling team, who have been on covid hiatus since a January 30 dual meet win over West Branch, entered 11 wrestlers in to the post season fray, all with the ultimate goal of earning a medal at the PIAA State Championships on March 12 in Hershey.
The post-season journey begins Saturday February 20 inside the Bison Gym at the Clearfield Area Junior/Senior High School. Due to the covid, the meet has been pared down to a single day event with no spectators. Not an ideal situation – but at least it appears to be happening!
The top three finishers in each of the 13 weight classes will advance to next week’s North West Regional Championship at Sharon High School.
Ten out of the 11 Tide grapplers would have to wrestle above their seed to advance, as undefeated freshman Ryder Kuklinskie (5-0) at 132 is the lone Curwensville wrestler to garner a top-3 seed. He received a number two seed to Redbank Valley senior Trenten Rupp (8-1), who was a district champ in 2019 and a runner-up last year.
At 113, junior Jacob Carfley (5-1) earned a number four seed, which matches his finish at the district tourney last year. Carfley takes a 46-24 career record into his third post season.
106 pound sophomore Damian Brady (2-4) is the number five seed in a 5-man bracket.
Four different Tide wrestlers have number six seeds, making them one upset win over the number three seed in the quarterfinals from reaching the semis.
Sophomore Nik Fegert (4-2) is at 126 and placed fifth at districts last year.
Zach Shaffer (4-2), a junior, is at 138.
Senior Jake McCracken (2-4) got off to a slow start this year at 189, but he was a district runner-up last year, and would seem to be the Tide wrestler most likely to make a run higher than his seed. A four-year letterwinner, he carries a 63-38 career record in to his fourth and final post season.
Another senior taking his last shot will be Duane Brady (4-2) at 215. He placed fifth last year and is looking to move up two spots to keep his career (39-27) moving forward.
Freshman Logan Aughenbaugh (3-3) is the seven seed at 145. Mitchell Sutika (0-5) is an eighth seeded junior at 152. Junior Dylan Harmic (0-2) is the nine seed at 172 and sophomore Chase Irwin (1-5) is the 11 seed at 160.
Five returning District 9 AA champs will be in the field, and they all earned top seeds for this year’s tourney.
They are Brookville’s Cayden Walter (14-4) at 106, Owen Reinsel (17-1) at 120, and Nathan Taylor (17-1) at 285. Both Reinsel and Taylor went on to fourth place finishes at the PIAA State championships last year.
The last two returners are two time champ Braedon Johnson (6-0) of Port Allegany at 126 and 160 pounder Cole Casilio (9-0) of Johnsonburg.
Ethan Finch (21-0) at 189 from Sheffield, like Rupp from Redbank, was a champ back in 2019 and had to settle for runner-up status last year. Finch placed sixth at the state tourney last year.
Johnsonburg ended up with the most top seeds with five, as four others join the already mentioned Casilio. They are 113 pounder Wyatt Shaffer (9-0), 138 pounder Nolan Shaffer (9-0), Dalton Stahli (9-0) at 145, and 152 pounder Kaden Dennis (9-0).
The final two top seeds are Noah Bash (9-2), already a two-time runner-up, from Brockway at 172 and Redbank Valley’s Aiden Gardner (9-0) at 215.
Action gets underway at 9:00 am Saturday with the single elimination preliminary round.
Complete brackets and live coverage of the entire tourney by FloArena can be found by clicking here.