Nazareth Area High School's Aaron Bradley moving forward, nonstop

FROM THE EXPRESS TIMES

Aaron Bradley hasn't stopped since mid-August.

Football preseason, football season, football postseason, then right into wrestling season for the Nazareth Area High School junior.

It sounds exhausting -- and even Bradley admits he's looking forward to a break.

"It definitely is tough, having been going basically since summer with all the lifting and conditioning for football," Bradley said. "It definitely takes a toll. I enjoy sports, I thrive on them, but I was just talking to my friends today that after wrestling season I am definitely taking a couple of weeks off."

Potential upcoming foes of Bradley might well wish he'd start his vacation right now. Bradley enters this weekend's District 11 Class AAA tournament at Liberty High School as the No. 1 seed at 220 pounds. He is the No. 1-ranked wrestler in The Express-Times area at 220 and ranked third by one state ranking service.

Bradley is 16-1 on the season, with 13 pins; indeed he has pinned every foe he has faced since December except for Freedom's Evan Kauffman (3-2 on Jan. 25).

"If I can get the match over with quickly, if I think I can dominate, then I am going for the pin," Bradley said. "Especially because pinning will help the team win."

While Bradley has been personally successful at both football (where he was a two-way tackle) and wrestling, the team experiences have been very different.

In football, Bradley helped Nazareth to the Lehigh Valley Conference championship and a D-11 Class AAA title.

"I sometimes look back and wish we could have gone further, but we had a great season to win the district championship," he said. "And I think for me, personally, there was some carryover from a great football season into wrestling."

In wrestling, the usually powerful Blue Eagles struggled to a 6-7 record, 4-4 in the league, and did not qualify for the D-11 team tournament.

"All the juniors and seniors on the team are upset that the team didn't come together the way we wanted it to," Bradley said. "We didn't do as well as we'd have liked as a team."

Nazareth did win its last three duals, including a 40-30 defeat of Northampton Feb. 1 in its final match, and Bradley thinks he sees a Blue Eagle surge coming.

"Beating Northampton was our biggest win of the season, and that win gave us confidence," Bradley said. "We knew we should have been at (team) districts, and we think we've turned it around now and can make a run at the team title at districts."

If the Blue Eagles do so, Bradley would likely play a key role. His only loss was to Milton's Ryan Solomon (4-1 on Dec. 28) and that was also the last time he was taken down.

"This year has been going pretty well for me in wrestling," Bradley said. "I have stayed injury-free (his sophomore year was plagued by nicks and knacks), and I'm comfortable at my weight though I have to watch that; I'm naturally at 225-230."

Bradley went 25-3 as a sophomore but did not make the state tournament.

"This year I have been trying to open up more, not keep matches so close, and to keep attacking," Bradley said. "I trust my talent and ability to do things. I'm trying to go after people and keep scoring."

Bradley owns one of the signature wins of this season, a 3-1 overtime defeat of Phillipsburg's Brandon Hull in the third-place match of the Bethlehem Holiday Wrestling Classic.

"I knew he was really good, I knew he was ranked highly by The Express-Times (No. 2 at 220)," Bradley said. "And when I won, I knew he had placed at states as a junior (eighth) and that made me think I can be right there at states, too."

Of course, now Bradley's the same kind of target.

"I know I have a target on my back, entering the district tournament as the top seed, but I don't know what to expect; I've never been a No. 1 seed before," he said. "I want to just keep opening up and attacking."

Bradley, who moved to Nazareth in seventh grade, said he'd been wrestling since he was in second grade, and that his development as a wrestler was helped by his size.

"I was always a bigger kid and I had to wrestle bigger kids that were older a lot," he said. "Instead of learning headlocks, I had to learn low singles and head-outside moves and I think that helped me. I only started playing football in eighth grade. Wrestling has always come to me more naturally than football."

Bradley said he hasn't set any firm goals for the wrestling postseason -- he did say he'd like a shot at returning state champion Thomas Haines, of Solanco, top-ranked in the state at 34-0 -- but is taking things as they come.

"I just hope to win some matches and keep advancing on," Bradley said.

And then take that well-deserved break.

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/02/nazareth_area_high_schools_aar.html