Jr. High Makes Noise in District 11 Debut

The junior high has started another impressive year.  In their opening action they placed third at the very tough Pittston Duals.  The junior high lost to tournament host Dallas and Pennsylvania powerhouse Bellefonte from district 6.  Both losses were by a margin of one bout.  The junior high quickly recovered to make short work of Wyoming Valley West when they came to town on Wednesday.

Saturday was the test, the Junior Bucks headed to Blue Mountain for a 24 team individual tournament that featured some of the top programs throughout Pennsylvania and a team from Georgia.  Tournament host Blue Mountain high school team has become a national powerhouse over the last few years so this tournament was going to be a brawl.  Wallenpaupack place seven wrestlers en route to a seventh place finish in the team standings.  The tournament was won by Pope, Georgia with tournament host Blue Mountain placing second followed by Stroudsburg, Biglerville, Conrad Weiser, and Mechanicsburg.  It was an outstanding way for the team to start and continue to add to the respect Wallenpaupack has been gathering in that part of the state. 

Eighth grade standout Chase Gallik rolled over his 95 lb. competition being pushed to the second period only once.  Chase opened the tournament with a 43 second fall over Dingman’s Dominick Divirgilio and followed that up with a fall over James Cramer of Stroudsburg in 2:30.  In his semi final match he wrapped up Lehighton’s Josh Gronick in 1:02.  Chase wasted no time in the finals pinning Williams Valley Tyler Deiter in just 32 seconds.

Seventh grader Kyle Hartman picked up two fall and a decision on his way to the finals before losing to Conrad Weiser’s Brent Himmelreich.  The impressive run of matches gave him Wallenpaupack’s second best performance finishing as the runner-up at the 185 lb weight class.

Kyle’s practice partner Kenny Roman went 3-1 as well and ended up in 3rd place in the 250 lb. weight class.  Kenny picked up falls over Wilson Southern’s Blaine Tettemer and Stroudsburg Alex Peterson before losing in the semis to Pope, Georgia’s Joey Freeman.  Kenny rebounded for 3rd with a fall over Mahanoy Area’s Steve Bolusky.

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