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Wilkes-Barre council member opens his home for Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving lunch shows appreciation for volunteers at St. Jude’s School

<p>Since busting onto the high school wrestling scene four years ago as a highly-touted freshman, big things were always projected for Jimmy Hoffman.</p><p>The Hazleton Area senior took all that praise with a grain of salt and never got overconfident by continuing his hard work ethic.</p><p>As his accolades grew so did his goals. And earlier this week, Hoffman announced that he would be continuing his athletic and academic career at Division I Lehigh, a very successful national program.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just an awesome feeling getting past this long recruiting process,&#8221; said Hoffman, who chose Lehigh over fellow Division I schools Lock Haven and Buffalo. &#8220;The past three months have been nothing but letters and calls from coaches.&#8221;</p><p>Choosing a school that&#8217;s close to his home in Hazleton wasn&#8217;t necessarily a need for Hoffman, who begins this season in a few weeks with 118 career wins and needs just 23 victories this season to set a new school record.</p><p>Being close to home is just an added perk because the Mountain Hawks&#8217; program speaks for itself. They have been one of the top programs in the nation over the last several decades crowing 27 national champions, which is sixth overall among all Division I schools. They&#8217;ve also dressed an All-American 145 times &#8211; good for eighth all time in the D-I record books &#8211; including a current streak of seven consecutive years and at least one in 17 of the last 20 years.</p><p>&#8220;That was the real neat thing about being recruited by an elite program is that it&#8217;s something you work for all year long,&#8221; Hoffman said. &#8220;It&#8217;s unreal how everything came to be but it&#8217;s really cool.&#8221;</p><p>The returning state runner-up in Class 3A for the Cougars, Hoffman is joining a squad that also lands some of the most talented wrestlers in all of Pennsylvania, including former District 2 pal Chase Gallick from Wallenpaupack, who is now a sophomore with Lehigh.</p><p>A total of 24 wrestlers on the roster graduated from a high school in Pennsylvania and were a medalist at the PIAA Championships.</p><p>Hoffman has the chance to slip right into the starting lineup next year at 141 pounds since a pair of current 141-pounders for Lehigh Darian Cruz and Jonathan Mele will be graduating. That also played a part in Hoffman&#8217;s decision to pick the school, because he was recruited for that weight.</p><p>&#8220;I obviously want to take a redshirt year next year to get acclimated to everything, but if they want to throw me in there to get some mat time, I would be more than OK with that,&#8221; the 132 and 1380-pound Hazleton Area grappler said.</p><p>The Mountain Hawks are led by Pat Santoro, who has guided his team to a winning record in every year since taking over the reins in 2009. Having just two losing seasons since 1995, Lehigh&#8217;s wrestling history dates back 107 years amassing more than 900 dual victories.</p><p>Hoffman and his Hazleton Area teammates have high hopes for the upcoming season when the campaign begins on Dec. 9 at the Top Hat Tournament in Williamsport. The Cougars were close to team goals last year, but fell short. It&#8217;s also a start to a wrestling year where Hoffman hopes to add to his hardware collection after such a devastating loss in the state final last year by just three points.</p><p>&#8220;I really want that state title. Not winning it last year was a real bummer,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now I just really want that title. Now, when I&#8217;m practicing and can&#8217;t breathe, it makes me push harder to want to get it.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Hazleton Area&#8217;s Jimmy Hoffman will be wrestling for Division I Lehigh University in the fall. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/web1_JIMMY-HOFFMAN-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Hazleton Area&#8217;s Jimmy Hoffman will be wrestling for Division I Lehigh University in the fall. </caption0><photoCredit0>Pete G. Wilcox file photo | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Dave Rosengrant</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Times Leader sports at 570-829-7143 or on Twitter @tlsports.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Hazleton Area’s Hoffman heading to Lehigh