It wasn’t a perfect 5-for-5 for the Emmaus wrestling team in terms of getting all of its wrestlers to Hershey after this past weekend’s Northeast AAA Regional Tournament, but it nearly was.
With five competing against fellow District 11 schools along with Districts 2, 4 and 12 at Liberty High School and the top five qualifying for the PIAA State Tournament, head coach Jim Best squad almost pulled it off.
It was that close.
“At this point in time, just based on the success we had in the last post season (sending four to states), I think it’s a natural inclination to use the word ‘only’ in front of three,” said the Hornets third year coach following practice on Monday. “I heard people say to me ‘you only got three out this year coach’ but I go back four or five years ago where if we would have gotten three out (to Hershey) which we did one year, we would have thought that we are really making progress.”
“Getting three to the state tournament is an accomplishment. There are other teams in the district that would love to be in that position, so we’re happy that we got the three that we did and they are all in a place in their respective bracket where they can win some matches and get themselves on the podium.”
And those three will be junior Emilio Albanese (127), making his third straight appearance and classmate Teagan Caciolo (121) along with senior Xayden Sallit (172) who will be making their second consecutive trips.
Two other Hornets – senior Jackson Max (139) and sophomore Xyler Sallit (160) – suffered heartbreak as both just missed on qualifying for states in their fifth-place matches at regionals.
As the current No. 1 ranked wrestler in his weight class, Albanese (37-2) followed up his District XI title from last week by winning his second regional title.
And he did it against a familiar foe in the defending state champ Nicholas Salamone of Easton who he beat 4-2 last week.
This time, it was a much tougher match that went well beyond regulation as Albanese won 2-1 in the UTB.
“Going back-to-back is awesome,” said Albanese. “This is my first time winning districts and regionals in the same season, and it gives me a lot of momentum heading into states.”
“I’m really happy for him and the way he won it,” said Best of his No. 1 wrestler. “He had to ride Salamone out for a minute and throughout Emilio’s high school career everybody knows that he’s really good in the neutral position. He’s like a takedown machine. He owns the takedown record here at Emmaus.
“For him to make that transition and be able to ride an opponent like Salamone who is really, really good on bottom and to ride him for a minute to win that match, I said to him that should give you confidence that if you’re in that situation in that state tournament. – and he very well may be – you know that you can ride a quality opponent for at least a minute. You’ve proven that to yourself. That is just going to add to his confidence level as he starts to navigate his way through the state tournament.”
Xayden Sallit (32-11) also had his best-ever show at regionals as he made it all the championship round before dropping a 2-1 TB2 decision to the top seed, Southern Lehigh junior Brock Frable.
“He took full advantage on how that bracket played out and his finals match we had that game planned out,” said Best of Sallit who finished fifth at regionals a year ago. “He knows him having wrestled him at the Grit Mat Club in the off season, so he knows his tendencies. Xayden executed the game plan perfectly in the match and we were close to getting that deciding takedown in regulation.”
Sallit, the No. 3 seed, got to the finals with dominant wins over senior Jonathan Dincher of Jersey Shore (20-5), sophomore Ilyas Benamara of Academy of Palumbo (16-4) who was the District 12 champ and senior Gabriel Caufield of Wallenpaupack (7-2) who was the District 2 champ.
Caciolo, who’s 33-6 on the season and just two wins shy of 100 for his career, had arguably the toughest challenge of any Emmaus wrestler as he battled his way through the consolation round to win three matches, including a 4-1 decision over a talented freshman from Easton, Jack Famularo in the third place match.
“Super proud and more importantly, he was proud of himself and he should be,” said Best of Caciolo. “In that second match on Saturday he wrestled (Kade) Pascoe from Whitehall, and they’ve wrestled each other so many times. He found a way to get that win and when he got that win his confidence was just soaring and he saw his path.”
After falling to the District 2 champ, sophomore Jacob Benyo of Hazleton in the quarterfinals 4-1, Caciolo defeated Notre Dame Green Pond freshman Cole Schwartz by major decision 10-0, followed by wins over Pascoe, and a 9-0 major decision over Jersey Shore freshman Gabriel Fisher.
Max, who finished eighth in the state a year ago at 107, lost a tough 4-3 decision to a familiar foe in Dieruff senior Kiovanny Hamlin (37-5) and Sallit dropped a 18-10 major decision loss to Parkland’s Jorge Moya (32-12). Max finished the season with a 32-14 record and a career mark of 96-52 while Sallit ended the season with a 27-11 record (49-26 career).
As a team, Emmaus finished sixth overall with 84.5 points. Notre Dame Green Pond wound up winning the team title with 139.5 points followed by Nazareth (2nd/139), Northampton (3rd/127.5), Becahi (4th/117) and Easton (5th/99).
Continue to follow Emmaus sports on ‘X’ and Emmaus sports on facebook as we will provide updates on the state tournament, which gets underway on Thursday at 4:30 p.m.