District XI Wrestling Pairings Released

District 11 wrestling chairman Bob Hartman, the athletic director at Whitehall High School, released the District 11 seed rankings via e-mail. These figures will be used by a seeding committee to determine the brackets for the team tournament.

Click here to see the unofficial standings released by Hartman on Monday.

As the foremost authority on District 11 wrestling ... insert joke here ... I'll help out the district's committee, which meets 9 a.m. Thursday at Whitehall, to sort out seeds for this weekend's District 11 Duals Tournament at Freedom High School. (Doug Heater of Service Electric 2 is the media representative? Ha! Ha! Ha!) Here are my seeds (with actual rankings in parentheses):

CLASS AAA

1. Nazareth (3); 2. Parkland (2); 3. Northampton (1); 4. Easton (9); 5. Liberty (7); 6. Whitehall (5); 7. Stroudsburg (4); 8. Blue Mountain (6); 9. Pleasant Valley (8); 10. Pocono Mountain East (10) or East Stroudsburg South (11).

(Note: Class AAA seedings are projected upon Nazareth defeating Northampton in Wednesday night's Lehigh Valley Conference match.)

Actually, Class AAA is relatively easy. Whitehall defeated Stroudsburg, which edged out Blue Mountain. Positions six through eight are really the only seedings open for much debate. However, if Hartman and his seeding committee is looking for a little irony, they should seed Stroudsburg eighth and Pleasant Valley ninth. That caused quite a stir up there in Mountain Valley Conference country last year.

CLASS AA

1. Pen Argyl (1); 2. Bethlehem Catholic (4); 3. Saucon Valley (2); 4. Northern Lehigh (6); 5. Pius X (3); 6. Tri-Valley (5), 7. Northwestern (8); 8. Lehighton (7); 9. Catasauqua (10); 10. Panther Valley (9).

Seeding the Class AA field is more subjective than the AAA teams because there are more conferences/leagues involved. Colonial League champion Pen Argyl, however, should be a lock at No. 1, despite a relatively weak dual-meet schedule. The Green Knights fared well at the King of the Mountain and Bethlehem Holiday Classic tournaments. Bethlehem Catholic of the LVC and Saucon Valley of the Colonial vie for the second seed; I'll give a slight edge to Becahi based on schedule. Pius X, which beat both Lehighton and Catasauqua, deserves a higher seed than usual and I slot the independent Royals at No. 5. Northwestern defeated Catasauqua, so that helps at the bottom of the seedings.

So, there you have it wrestling fans ... I'm sure the District 11 committee members will read this blog and follow right along. See you at the Duals on Friday night and Saturday.

Source: The Express Times