Lackawanna Trail’s Mark Rebmann fought through a difficult semifinal, then dominated the championship match to win the 145-pound Class 2A boys title of the District 2 Individual Wrestling Championships, which were conducted Feb. 20-21 at Wlkes-Barre Area High School.
Rebmann won a pair of technical falls sandwiched around a one-point decision.
After Rebmann defeated Montrose’s Wyatt Steele 21-5 in 3:52 of the quarterfinals, he ran into Hanover Area’s top-seeded Michael Perez in the semifinals.
Rebmann, the fourth seed, used the bout’s only takedown, midway through the second period, to produce a 4-3 victory. Neither wrestler scored in the first period, and Rebmann trailed 1-0 when he came up with the takedown.
In the final, Rebmann defeated Lake-Lehman’s Jackson Scott 19-3 in 5:47.
Lackawanna Trail, with just six wrestlers entered, used a 5-0 record in the quarterfinals and 3-2 in the semifinals to finish fifth in the standings of the 16-team tournament.
Honesdale ran away with the team title by a 252-148½ margin. Lackawanna Trail scored 104 points. Scranton Prep was 11th with 64.
Lackawanna Trail’s five semifinalists all finished in the top three in their weight classes, landing spots in the Northeast Regional in Williamsport.
Matthew Shafer and Riley Borruso finished second at 114 and 133. Both lost by first-period pins, Shafer to Hanover Area’s Chase Smith in 1:36 and Borruso to Honesdale’s Justin Scanlon in 1:11.
Borruso reached the final with a technical fall followed by two pins, each in less than 2:16.
Shafer also won by pins in both the quarterfinals and semifinals.
Joseph Thomas and Joshua Fowler recovered from being pinned in under a minute in the semifinals to win consecutive consolation bouts and finish third at 127 and 139. Both built big leads in the third-place matches before finishing off the wins with pins in the final minute.
Scranton Prep advanced just one wrestler to Williamsport. Jake Barrett finished third at 133.
Barrett won the consolation final over Hanover Area’s Jace Thomas 7-1. He began the tournament with a 12-second pin and posted major decisions before and after a semifinal loss to Borruso.
Jordan Henning placed fourth at 285, and Chris Paris was fifth at 215 with a 3-1 decision over Montrose’s William Fraiser.
