In the closest contested district in the state of Ohio, the Reading Blue Devils battled to a 1st place finish. Going in to the final round, an unheard of 4 teams where tied for the lead. Brookville, Carlisle, Madeira, and Reading each had 146.5 points at the start of the final round.
Brookville and Reading each had seven wrestlers competing in the final round, Madeira had six and Carlisle had eight.
Carlisle only had 2 wrestlers win (both for 3rd place) in the final round, so they finished fourth qualifying 5 wrestlers to the state tournament.
Madeira had 4 wrestlers win in the final round (3 in the championships, and 1 for 3rd place) and finished third as a team qualifying 6 wrestlers to the state tournament.
Brookville had 5 win in the final round (2 champions and 3 for 3rd place) and finished second. The heavyweight had to pin in the championship for them to earn second place as a team and qualify 7 wrestlers to the state tournament.
Reading had 4 wrestlers win in the final round. All of the Blue Devils victories were in the championships. Based on the final round bonus points of Chris Seta (Major victory over Merle from Madeira) and Tim Kelly (pinning Shultz from Brookville) the Blue Devils won the District tournament by 2 points.
The Blue Devils qualified a school record 7 wrestlers to the state tournament. The team also scored more points as a team than the tough 1997 squad. We were able to do this because all of our 10 district qualifiers scored points by winning matches in the early rounds.
Chris Hammonds wrestled his way to the semi-finals before finishing 6th.
Brian Mages wrestled well, but was knocked out of the tournament by the eventual 3rd place finisher.
Chris Seta continued his dominance over Merle of Madeira. The two wrestlers met in the championship finals for the third straight week.
Lucas Hazlett finally reached his goal of going to state tournament. Lucas qualified for state by defeating a Carlisle wrestler in the semi-finals. He had a great tournamet, winning three matches before falling short in the finals.
DJ Engel wrestled a tough kid from Carlisle in the finals. DJ won the district title by winning a double overtime match.
Clint Harmeyer realized a long-time dream by winning the district title and qualifying for the state tournament.
Tim Kelly earned the most outstanding wrestler award by dominated the field. His pin in the district finals turned out to be the points needed to clinch the team championships.
Jason Whitt won four straight matches in the consolation round, repaid the Carlisle wrestler that beat him first round, and qualified for state as a sophomore.
Tim Dick avenged a sectional loss to Summit by winning in the consolation round. Tim was one match away from being a freshman district placer.
Bryan Wilson won a series of close matches, including beating a Summit wrestler that beat us earlier at the sectional tournament. Bryan placed 4th and qualified for the state tournament as a sophomore.
For a more in depth district brake down click here.