Solanco had nine wrestlers compete in the District Three Class 3A Section Two tournament at Hempfield, Saturday, February 19. Five advanced to the District Three/Southcentral Region championships, earning second, third and fourth place finishes. The Mules finished in fifth place as a team, 14 points behind Warwick.
"I'm excited that we have five wrestlers moving on," said head coach Tony Mendez. "We were hoping for five. I thought we wrestled very well, maybe a bit above our expectations. Even the guys that did not qualify wrestled well.
"Now we hope we can get someone through to states. That will be a tall order but the potential is there."
Weston Bare (120), Jared Fulton (132) and Robert Castagna (189) earned silver medal finishes while Blaine Plastino was third at 172 and Wade Adams finished fourth at 152. Caden Rutt finished fifth at 106 and is an alternate while Ben Williams settled for sixth at 145. Andrew Smith (138) and Jaden Summers (215) also competed.
Bare entered the tournament as the No. 2 seed and opened with a 7-2 decision over Hempfield's McCain-Murray. He advanced to the finals with a 4-2 win over Lampeter's Riley Bonholtzer. His first period takedown proved to be the difference as both wrestlers scored two points each in the final period.
Bare fell short 5-2 against Township's Kamdyn Williams in the finals.
"Williams was undefeated last year," noted Mendez. "That was a tough task. Both Weston and Jared were underdogs but wrestled well.
Fulton fell behind 5-0 against CD's Matt Repos in the championship round but rallied in the third only to fall short 5-3. His tournament opened with a quarterfinals pin over Donegal's Landon Keller in 1:58. He worked a 10-2 major decision over Central's Uriah Warner to get to the finals.
"Jared had a close one in the finals against a two-time state champ," said Mendez. "And the Central kid he beat in the league finals."
Unlike Bare and Fulton, Castagna was a sixth seed coming in and settled for second. The senior posted an 8-5 quarterfinals decision over Hershey's Tristan Bingeman and then knocked off No. 2 seed Eli Poyer, of Central Dauphin, 8-2 in the semis to get to Dylan Bard (Hempfield) in the finals. Bard earned a 13-8 decision.
Grabbing a bronze medal was Plastino, who exceeded his sixth place seeding position. He pinned Donegal's Silas Mumper in the round of 16 but dropped a 3-1 sudden victory to Hempfield's Kamron Fickes in the quarterfinals bumping him to the consolations. Plastino rebounded with a 4-0 shutout over Ian Brosey (Elizabethtown), pinned Penn Manor's Teagen Rogers in 2:25, and used a third period escape to hold off Lampeter-Strasburg's Joel Bitler. In the battle for bronze, Plastino found himself in a rematch against Fickes and this time came out on top, breaking a 2-2 tie in the second period with a third period escape and a takedown for a 5-2 decision.
Adams, the seventh seed at 152, opened with a 14-2 major decision over Lampeter's Ian VanDeusen but was knocked to the consolation bracket with a 9-2 loss to Warwick's Andrew McClune. He rebounded with three straight wins, scoring a 15-4 major decision over Salem Essis (Hershey), pinning Donegal's Ian Brown, and earning a 6-3 decision over CD's Jeremiah Cortes to get Aiden Robinson (Elizabethtown) in the battle for third. Robinson used nearfall points in the second period to push his 2-0 lead to 6-2 and settled for a 10-3 decision.
"I was most excited for Wade," said Mendez. "That is the best he has ever wrestled. That was well deserved. Cortes beat Wade at the Mule Classic, so it was nice to see him get that one back."
Rutt (106) opened with an 18-11 loss to Josh Smith (Palmyra) but rebounded with a 2:27 fall over McCaskey's Journie Rodriguez before dropping a tech fall to Warwick's Marco Tocci, the eventual third place finisher. Rutt avenged that first round loss to Smith with an 8-3 decision and the fifth-place medal.
Williams (145) also opened with a loss, dropping a 3-1 count to Palmyra's Mason Bucks and ended the day with a second loss to Bucks (5-4) and settled for sixth place. In between the earned a 12-9 decision over Josh Heisey (L-S), and a 7-2 result over Milton Hershey's Skylar Jacko before falling short 6-2 against Donegal's Silas Mumper.
FOOTBALL
PAFootballNews.com recently announced the All-Academic teams for the 2021 season. Solanco's Gold team members (4.0 GPA and up) included Andre Mohler, Trent Henry, Josiah Forren and Logan Furches. Silver team members (3.5 - 3.9 GPA) were Cole Gladfelter, Trent McDowell, Brody Mellinger and Nick DeFrancesco while Aden Herr qualified for the Bronze team (3.0 - 3.4 GPA).
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Fresh off her United East Player of the Week recognition, former Solanco standout Jade Eshleman, a freshman at Lancaster Bible College, was the team's leading scorer in the Chargers' final game of the season, a 63-58 loss to Penn State Harrisburg on February 19. Eshleman also hauled in 13 rebounds for her fifth double-double of the season. February 15, she had 17 points and 10 rebounds in a 73-50 win at Penn College.
Sophomore teammate Jenna Dombach, also a former Solanco teammate, led the Chargers with 91 made three-pointers on the year. She and Eshleman led the team in scoring with an 8.7 and 8.8 points per game average, respectively.
Leave a Review