District 11 Class 3A wrestling tournament
When: Thursday and Saturday
Where: Thursday: Bethlehem Catholic, Liberty and Pottsville; Saturday, Freedom
Schedule (seeds in parentheses):
Thursday
(at Liberty)
(10) Emmaus (12-6) v. (7) Easton (11-4), 6 p.m.; winner v. (2) Nazareth (13-1), 7:30 p.m.
(11) Parkland (8-5) v. (6) Liberty (14-5), 6 p.m.; winner v. (3) Northampton (12-2), 7:30 p.m.
(at Bethlehem Catholic)
(9) Stroudsburg (14-6) v. (8) Bangor (17-6), 6 p.m.; winner v. (1) Bethlehem Catholic (11-3), 7:30 p.m.
(at Pottsville)
(12) Freedom (9-6) v. (5) Blue Mountain (15-3), 6 p.m.; winner v. (4) Pottsville (14-2), 7:30 p.m.
Saturday
(at Freedom)
Session 1
Consolation quarterfinals, 9 a.m.
Semifinals, 10:45 a.m.
Consolation semifinals, 12:30 p.m.
Session 2
Championship and consolation finals, 5:30 p.m.
“True second” (if necessary), 7:30 p.m.
What’s at stake: D-11 3A championship; top two finishers earn berths in PIAA 3A state tournament. Champion advances directly to Hershey Feb. 11 (6 p.m.) to face winner of play-in match between District 12 runner-up and District 1 third place, which will be wrestled Monday. D-11 runner-up meets District 3’s fourth-place team in Monday play-in; winner advances to Hershey Feb. 11 (8 p.m.) to meet District 6 champion.
Brackets: here.
Admission: Thursday, $6 adults/$3 senior citizens and students; Saturday Session 1, $6 adults/$3 senior citizens and students; Saturday session 2, all tickets $6
Brad Wilson’s analysis: For the first time in a while, District 11’s byzantine seeding system has properly seeded the top three teams. Bethlehem Catholic is the heavy favorite to win its seventh straight D-11 team title (third consecutive in 3A). The Golden Hawks defeated Nazareth 40-20 in last weekend’s Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship match, winning 10 of 14 bouts. Should they Sultanbet meet in D-11 final the score could well be closer but Becahi’s depth is awfully hard to overcome. Best chance for a significant upset would be Liberty over Northampton in a quarterfinal Thursday; that went 34-32 Konkrete Kids at the EPC day and could be easily reversed in districts. Either way, though, the winner of that quarterfinal will a) not be favored to defeat Nazareth and b) will be favored (by a lot) to win the consolation final. If so, the “true second” match would not be necessary, which no one would mind. For a first-round upset, and quarterfinal one as well, how about Freedom to knock off the Schuylkill League contingent and “host” Becahi Saturday? Could happen. But the teams state-bound won’t be any upset.
Brad Wilson’s prediction: Champion: Bethlehem Catholic. Runner-up: Nazareth
Brad Wilson may be reached at bwilson@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @bradwsports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
