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Times Leader speller took national crown in 2011

There has been a shot of youth in the Wyoming Valley Conference this season.If you haven&#8217;t noticed yet, you&#8217;re about to this weekend at the Northeast Regional tournaments.After the conference was part of a record-setting season a year ago with 15 state qualifiers, only three of them are participating in this weekend&#8217;s regional tournaments at Bethlehem&#8217;s Liberty High School (Class 3A) and Williamsport High School (2A).That&#8217;s not because of a lack of talent, it&#8217;s due to the majority of them graduating in 2015. The only three returning who advanced to states last year are Hazleton Area&#8217;s Chris Lasecki and Jimmy Hoffman, and Meyers&#8217; Colin Pasone. And all three of them are underclassmen as well.Sooner or later, a reloading in the conference was going to happen. That began this season and continued at the District 2 Tournament, where 10 of the league&#8217;s 16 champions crowned were underclassmen.Including those wrestlers advancing to regionals, 30 of the 47 regional qualifiers from the WVC are underclassmen who will be battling to finish in the top four of their weight classes this weekend to move on to the PIAA Championships at Giant Center in Hershey from March 10-12. Thirteen of those underclassmen are freshmen or sophomores.The influx of young talent means good things are happening in the conference once again, Hanover Area coach Anthony Mercadante said.&#8220;It&#8217;s a youth movement, which is good and it&#8217;s showing that the work they did in the junior high levels or maybe in elementary levels is paying off on the senior high level that they could compete with the older kids that are around,&#8221; Mercadante said. &#8220;So I think it&#8217;s a good thing. It&#8217;s showing that our talent, our depth talent is coming along nicely.&#8221;No Gold, no problemEvery wrestler that did not claim district gold last weekend is not happy with the results. But there&#8217;s no reason to get discouraged. There are plenty of examples of athletes finishing as runner-up or even third place at districts and going on to hit other high-water marks in the next few weeks.Look no further than last year when three wrestlers from District 2 took second at districts then advanced to the PIAA Championships. Those wrestlers are Driscoll, Western Wayne&#8217;s Cole Fuller and Hazleton Area&#8217;s Derek Spachman.There have also been plenty of cases in recent years where both district finalists meet again at regionals and states with the stakes even higher.To name just a few of the many, one that comes to mind was just four years ago when Coughlin&#8217;s Brad Emerick and Pittston Area&#8217;s Chris Wesolowski met in the district final, the regional final, and in a match at the PIAA Championships that determined who would be medalist.A few years before that, Emerick&#8217;s teammate with the Crusaders Josh Popple was part of rivalry with Hazleton Area&#8217;s Jared Kay. Even though Popple won the district final between the two, Kay came back to beat Popple in the regional final, then again in the state&#8217;s third-place match.You can point to numerous weight classes from both district tournaments this year and see something like that happening in the next two weeks because of the strength and parity of D2 finalists.Missing DriscollIf the number of returning state qualifiers seems a little low, that&#8217;s because Lake-Lehman&#8217;s R.J. Driscoll is missing from the group. The junior hasn&#8217;t wrestled since district duals after suffering a shoulder injury.The junior wrestled at 126, 132 and 138 this season and his campaign concludes with a record of 26-7.Scouting the competitionIt&#8217;s a well-known fact that District 11 and 4 are powerhouses in Class 3A and 2A, respectively when it comes to wrestling, while D12 in 3A is a little more welcome for D2 wrestlers.Just how tough are the districts this season?There are 25 returning state qualifiers and 11 returning state medalists from D4 in this weekend&#8217;s regional at Williamsport, including Athens&#8217; Brian Courtney (126) and Southern Columbia&#8217;s Blake Marks (160) and Todd Lane (132) who were all previous second-place finishers in the state.From District 11, the numbers are impressive with two returning state champs and three state runners-up from last year. But the past number of state qualifiers from last year is 22.There are no past state qualifiers from District 12. The state champs from D11 are Nazareth&#8217;s Tyson Klump (106) and Bethlehem Catholic&#8217;s two-time state champ Luke Karam (126), while the second-place state medalists are Nazareth&#8217;s Sam Sasso (138), Stroudsburg&#8217;s John Jakobsen (195) and Northampton&#8217;s Dan Moran (120 in 2014).The gold goes to&#8230;For the last 21 years, the Wyoming Valley Conference has crowned at least one regional champion each season. The last time the conference &#8212; and the entire district for that matter &#8212; did not dress one gold medalist at one of the Northeast regional tournaments was 1994.The streak is in Class 3A is a little longer than 2A. In 3A, the WVC has had a champion every year since 2004, while the last time the league went without a gold medalist in 2A was 2010 and 2011. But Meyers&#8217; Vito Pasone and Lake-Lehman&#8217;s Austin Harry were both finalists in 2011; and Lehman&#8217;s Shane Stark was a finalist in 2010.First time&#8217;s a charmA total of 24 qualifiers for this weekend&#8217;s tourney&#8217;s from the WVC are making their first appearance at the event. Last year, 24 grapplers also made their first appearance at regionals with two of them reaching the state tournament. Those 24 combined for 26 wins last season.<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Wyoming Valley West freshman David Krokowski (left) is one of 30 underclassmen from the WVC participating in this weekend&#8217;s Northeast Regional tournaments. Krokowski won the 106-pound District 2 Class 3A gold last weekend. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_coughlinwvwwrestle01.jpg</photo0><caption0>Wyoming Valley West freshman David Krokowski (left) is one of 30 underclassmen from the WVC participating in this weekend&#8217;s Northeast Regional tournaments. Krokowski won the 106-pound District 2 Class 3A gold last weekend. </caption0><photoCredit0>Pete G. Wilcox file photo | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Dave Rosengrantdrosengrant@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta>UP NEXTWhat: Northeast Regional TournamentsWhen: Friday and SaturdayWhere: Class 2A at Williamsport H.S., Class 3A at Liberty H.S., BethlehemAt Stake: The top four in each classification will advance to the PIAA Championships at Giant Center in Hershey March 10-12</factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Dave Rosengrant at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @tldrosengrant</shirttailMeta></div>

WVC underclassmen highlight field for regionals