| When the brackets came out last week for the class 2A District 10 team championships, there was one team oddly missing. The Region 5 second-place Titusville Rockets who have a 5-1 record and who beat a few of the teams that were in the postseason bracket to compete. Was it an oversight? Was it a snub? On social media the speculations and confusions spread around after the simple question was asked, ‘where is Titusville?’ It was a question many people had given the Rockets are one of the top squads in northwest Pennsylvania. “We opted out,” said head coach Mo Burns. “We had a guy get banged up against Corry (on Wednesday) and we had a guy banged up before that and we had a couple kids who were sick and that carried over into this weekend,” Burns explained. “I just woke up at 2:30 in the morning Friday morning and thought ‘I just don’t think this is the best thing for our entire team.’ Then the coaches got together and we were all in agreement. That for where we are right now. health-wise, the risk wasn’t worth the reward. So we opted out.” Burns’ concerns were dramatically illustrated over the weekend at the prestigious Fred Bell tournament in Grove City. Though they started very strong on Friday with several wins in the championship flight and looking strong even in the consolation rounds as they headed into day two, they weren't at their best. "You can get by the early rounds not at your best," Burns said. But in a tournament with 43 wrestlers the rounds just keep getting tougher." Saturday the wheels fell off. Top seed Isaac Roberts was sick and dropped out after losing in the quarter finals, Kameron Mong tore something in his leg and also opted out. And then they weren’t able to win a single match in the “blood round,” the quarterfinal consolation matches where the winners move into the medal round and losers pack their gym bags and become spectators. The Rockets' 285-pounder Bryce Wadkins also made it to the quarterfinal but was pinned by General McLane’s Connor Avery. The only Rocket left standing in the medal round was 107 pounder Sawyer Wolfkiel who made it to the semifinals. Wolfkiel's run came from four straight wins against Jack Kondrasuk of Laurel (pin), Rycker Kozalovsky of Redbank Valley (pin), Angelo Boni of Cenral Valley (tech fall), and Jackson Hoy of Trinity (3-1). Wolfkiel lost in the semis to Pine Richland’s Bennett Ferraro. He then had to wrestle back into the third place match by beating Williamport’s Jordan Piselli. In the third place match he got a 4-0 decision over Union City’s Van Ward. Wolfkiel finished 6-1 on the day. He has been working hard to get down to 107 this year in time for the post season. He has been wrestling up at 114 and 121 and has a 27-5 season record. The junior is only 11 wins from the century mark. Sawyer has been working really hard to get down to the 107 weight in preparation for the postseason. Which he did for this tournament and earned the third place finish. “I don’t think we’ve seen Sawyer at his best,” Burns said about working his way down in weight, but he has done what he has needed to win. “We’re super proud of him and it is great to see him rewarded for the hard work he has been putting in this season. As for the rest of the team and their surprising 13th place finish at the Bell, Burns isn’t worried. “Coming into this we knew we had some kids who weren’t the healthiest,” Burns said. “We had a good Friday but coming into today(Saturday)… whether we were a little mentally fatigued, a little physically fatigued… it just caught up to us.” Burns said that there were things to be learned from the tournament despite the poor overall showing. “We lost some tight matches today at we’re going to have to win down the road. We’ll have to build on those. We have to mentally reset and then physically get ready. We have three weeks to get better. I’m confident that will happen,” Burns said, referring to the postseason tournaments with the goal of having wrestlers make it to Hershey for the state championships. |           |
Below are more recent photos from Titusville wrestling matches.
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