Heading into the start season, Jim Best was confident about five or more of his wrestlers qualifying for the PIAA State Championships.
Three months later, that confidence hasn’t wavered.
“We’re very confident,” said Emmaus’ third year coach following practice on Thursday. “We’ve looked at the brackets and played out the different scenarios amongst the coaches as to what routes each individual wrestler might find themselves in and with all the scenarios we played out, it’s realistic that each one of those guys can get into the top five in their respective weight class and qualify for the state tournament.”
Step 1 begins tonight for Xayden Sallit, Jackson Max, Emilo Albanese, Teagan Caciolo and Xyler Sallit as they head to the Northeast Regional Class 3A Tournament at Liberty’s Memorial Gymnasium.
Action gets underway at 5 p.m. with the prelims followed by the quarterfinals at 6:45 p.m. and first round consolations at 8 p.m.
On Saturday, second round consolations begin at 9:30 a.m. followed by the semifinals at 11 a.m. The 1st, 3rd and 5th place matches get underway at 4 p.m. The top five advance to the PIAA State Tournament March 5-7 at the Giant Center in Hershey.
The preparation for the regional tournament began back on Monday of this week as Best and his coaching staff prepared their wrestlers for what lies ahead.
“We try to change as little as possible in this week,” said Best. “The focus of the practices are to maintain the conditioning levels and to maintain the feeling of being in live wrestling situations.
“From a technical perspective, to really look at anything that we needed to address from the weekend of districts that wasn’t working and also doing a little scouting on opponents that we are going to see in the regional tournament, especially that first round opponent. Focusing on adjustments that need to be made. You try to change as little as possible.”
Albanese, who was Emmaus’ highest place winner at states a year ago finishing third, is the top overall seed at 127 after winning his first-ever district title last week, knocking off defending state champ Nicholas Salamone of Easton.
The junior, 33-2 on the season, will be looking for his second straight regional title. His first-round matchup will be against Archbishop Ryan freshman Neil Carr (23-16) who is the fifth-place finisher from District 12.
Max, who also had a taste of reaching Hershey last season placing eighth, qualified for regionals for the second consecutive season after securing the fifth and final spot at districts. The senior (29-11) will have an opening round match vs George Washington senior Alisajjod Kahramonov, the District 12 champ, who is 26-5 on the season.
Caciolo, a PIAA state qualifier from a year ago, enters the regional tournament with a lot of confidence coming off his best showing at districts where he finished runner-up.
The junior (28-5) will face Selinsgrove senior Anthony Snook (24-12), the third place finisher from District four in his first match in a pretty tough 121 pound bracket that also features District 2 champ Hazleton sophomore Jacob Benyo, District 12 champ LaSalle College junior Cooper Helm and District 11 foes Becahi sophomore Nico Emilio, who won the district title, and third and fifth place finishers, Easton freshman Jack Famularo and Whitehall senior Kade Pascoe.
Xayden Sallit, another PIAA state qualifier from a year ago, looks for a return trip back to Hershey in his final season.
Sallit (29-10) is coming off of his highest finish ever at districts last week where he took third in the 172-pound weight class. His first-round matchup will be against Jersey Shore senior Jonathan Dincher (23-14) who was the District four runner-up.
Xayden’s brother, Xyler, a sophomore who is 25-8 on the season and also battled his way back to finish third at districts, will get his first taste of the regional tournament with an opening-round match vs St. Joe’s Prep senior Keegan Swift (19-19) who is the District 12 runner-up.
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