Guatemala town celebrates patron saint with dance, fireworks

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Clifford’s a Lion who is ready to roar

WILKES-BARRE &#8211; Beau Bartlett has achieved numerous accomplishments throughout an illustrious career at Wyoming Seminary, from Outstanding Wrestler awards to national championships and appearances in world tournaments.There was still room for one more achievement for the Penn State recruit.On Saturday, Bartlett became the first four-time champion of the X-Calibur Tournament, as the 138-pounder pinned his way through the tournament en route to winning the Outstanding Wrestler Award in addition to the most pins and least amount of time awards.The Blue Knights claimed the tournament team title for the sixth straight year.&#8220;I&#8217;m not really sure I&#8217;ve ever seen anything like that before, to win all three major awards at the end,&#8221; Sem coach Scott Green said. &#8220;But Beau Bartlett is leading a legacy, and X-Calibur is our tournament. He&#8217;s gonna be the first four-time champion.&#8221;Bartlett, who piled up five pins in 8 minutes, 22 seconds &#8212; with just two going past the first period and one being in six seconds &#8212; rebounded after taking second at the Ironman Tournament last weekend when he lost a tough match in the tiebreaker. Ranked No. 1 in the nation according to several polls, Bartlett knew he had to get back to work in the room leading up to the X-Calibur.&#8220;I&#8217;ve never won a tournament four times before. It&#8217;s a good beginning to a nice senior year. I came back from Ironman last week taking second place when I feel like I didn&#8217;t wrestle my best,&#8221; Bartlett said. &#8220;Ever since then, I&#8217;ve been pushing myself differently, not harder just differently. And it feels good to improve a little bit. It&#8217;s always nice to improve.&#8221;The Blue Knights, who nearly lapped the field with 390.5 points with 11 champions, finished 190 points ahead of second-place Quakertown. Taking over the No. 1 spot in the country earlier in the week, Sem proved its worth of being the top team in the nation with 13 finalists.Joining Bartlett as champions from the Blue Knights were Daniel Sheen (106), Brennen Cernus (113), Nic Bouzakis (126), Drew Munch (132), Connor Kievman (152), Gabe Arnold (160), Andrew Donahue (170), Cole Rees (182), Kolby Franklin (220) and Nate Miller (285).&#8220;It&#8217;s great to see the guys, freshmen, sophomores like Gabe Arnold winning. The whole team is coming together and we&#8217;re really close and maturing,&#8221; Bartlett said. &#8220;We all have similar goals in mind and we&#8217;re just working towards it. It&#8217;s really nice.&#8220;Instead of saying &#8216;Maybe we can reach these goals (of being ranked first).&#8217; We have it right now and if we keep improving as we&#8217;re working each week, we&#8217;ll get there.&#8221;Bouzakis defeated Wyoming Valley West&#8217;s J.J. White in the 126-pound final. White was the top finisher from the four Wyoming Valley Conference teams participating in the tournament. His teammate Ian Ratchford (113) and Lake-Lehman&#8217;s Nick Zaboski (170) both improved on their showings from previous years to take third.Ratchford, who was seventh a year ago, defeated Todd McGann from Quakertown to take third after defeating AJ Stayton by fall in the consolation semifinals. That match was a rematch of a first-round bout won by Stayton when Ratchford was up 15-10 but got caught in the third period and was pinned as Ratchford wrestled all the way back to finish third.&#8220;It was a great feeling to come back from a loss like that,&#8221; Ratchford said. &#8220;It was unfortunate but I came back and I won.&#8221;When White won his semifinal match Saturday morning, he became just the fourth WVC wrestlers to ever reach the tournament finals and the first since his former teammate David Krokowski did so in 2016.&#8220;He knew that he was walking into a tough match, but he kept a goal in mind trying not to get pinned, but he did good,&#8221; Ratchford said about White.Zaboski lost in Friday&#8217;s quarterfinals then wrestled back to finish third when he defeated Jarrett Niedosik from North Penn and he improved from a fourth-place finish a year ago.&#8220;The whole weekend I was running through my head that I couldn&#8217;t place lower than I did last year,&#8221; Zaboski said. &#8220;To my whole team and to me it means a lot because it shows you&#8217;re never gonna quit and never gonna give up during anything. Because once you lose one of those in the blood round, you have so many matches to wrestle. And to come back and take third means so much to everybody on the team.&#8221;In all of Zaboski&#8217;s wins in the tournament he picked up bonus points for the Black Knights, who were the highest-finishing of the WVC teams taking 13th. The other three schools &#8211; Wyoming Valley West (14th), Wilkes-Barre Area (18th) and Pittston Area (20th) are all Class 2A teams. That gives the Black Knights confidence going forward even with missing a few wrestlers to injury early on and losing two state qualifiers to graduation last year.&#8220;To come in here at the toughest tournament we do, and to take first out of the four conference teams brings a lot of confidence to the team,&#8221; Zaboski said. &#8220;And it shows that we still can do something when everybody thinks we can&#8217;t because of all the kids we lost.&#8221;All four WVC teams had placers. The Black Knights also got medals from Mason Konigus (seventh at 113), Zach Stuart (eighth at 145) and Josh Bonomo (fifth at 152). In addition to White and Ratchford, Jaden Swainbank placed sixth for the Spartans. For Wilkes-Barre Area, Nino Cinti (132) took sixth, while Jamie Pahler (152) and Connor Lee (220) were eighth. Jimmy Spindler (sixth, 145) and A.J. Gorto (fourth, 160) were medalists for Pittston Area.X-Calibur Tournament Team Scores: 1. Wyoming Seminary 390.; 2. Quakertown 200.5; 3. West Morris Central 139; 4. Landstown 234.5; 5. Bound Brook 133; 5. Paramus Catholic 133; 7. Faith Christian Academy 91.5; 8. Blair Academy B Team 86.5; 9. Archbishop Ryan 78.5; 9. Princess Anne 78.5; 11. North Penn 68; 11. Pocono Mountain East 68; 13. Lake-Lehman 67; 14. Wyoming Valley West 65; 15. East Stroudsburg South 64; 16. Troy 59; 17. Northwestern Lehigh 58; 18. Wilkes-Barre Area 7; 19. Pennridge 56; 20. Pittston Area 55; 21. Meadowbrook Christian School 40Finals 106: Daniel Sheen (Wyoming Seminary) pinned George Hufnagel (Paramus Catholic) 1:35; 113: Brennen Cernus (Wyoming Seminary) maj dec Cade Wirnsberger (Meadowbrook) 12-1; 120: Sheldon Seymour (Troy) dec Gregor McNeil (Wyoming Seminary) 6-5; 126: Nic Bouzakis (Wyoming Seminary) pinned J.J. White (Wyoming Valley West) 1:41; 132: Drew Munch (Wyoming Seminary) dec Xavier Pena (Bound Brook) 11-4; 138: Beau Bartlett (Wyoming Seminary) pinned Eli Shepherd (West Morris Central) 1:32; 145: Steven Storm (Pocono Mountain East) pinned Magnus Frable (Wyoming Seminary) 1:24; 152: Connor Kievman (Wyoming Seminary) pinned Alexander Martinez (Bound Brook) 1:04; 160: Gabe Arnold (Wyoming Seminary) dec Bryce Sanderlin (Landstown) 4-3; 170: Andrew Donahue (Wyoming Seminary) tech fall Colin Loughney (West Morris Central) 16-1, 4:57; 182: Cole Rees (Wyoming Seminary) tech fall Ike Schmidt (Blair Academy B Team) 15-0, 3:20; 195: Logan Green (Pennridge) pinned Daren Cercioglu (Paramus Catholic) 3:04; 220: Kolby Franklin (Wyoming Seminary) dec Max Acciardi (Paramus Catholic) 8-2; 285: Nate Miller (Wyoming Seminary) dec Sean Horner (Blair Academy B Team) 3-1.<style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Dave RosengrantFor Times Leader</bylineMeta></div>

Bartlett pins down his fourth X-Calibur wrestling title