High School Wrestling

Brooke Zumas got a phone call four years ago. Pat Tocci, a Liberty graduate, current Penn Manor athletic director and Lititz resdient who has been influential in growing wrestling on the local, state and national levels, was calling.

The last to speak at the Celebration of Life for his father, Hall of Fame wrestling coach Neil Turner, Trent Turner gave a powerful, passionate eulogy, the soaring rhetoric calling back to warm summer evenings and circuit preachers under a tent.

• Ted Rupp Jr. High Sportsmanship Award: Lebanon.

HARRISBURG — When Terry Steiner shows up to watch a wrestling match, you know the caliber of talent on the mats is strong.

HARRISBURG — For a long time, McCaskey’s Journie Rodriguez had been looking for that one breakthrough match of her career.

A little past 5 p.m. on the first Wednesday evening of March inside Penn Manor High School’s new auxiliary gymnasium, girls wrestling practice has come to an end. Grapplers are being tasked with rolling up the wrestling mats and pushing them up against a wall.

HERSHEY — Manheim Township coach John Clark captured the essence of the PIAA wrestling championships when he said, “… stuff happens here all the time.”

HERSHEY — Twice is nice. But, for Aaron Seidel, nothing matches that first-time feeling.

HERSHEY — Like footprints in the sand, the state championship hopes of Kaedyn Williams, Marco Tocci, Seamus Mack and Jose Garcia III were washed away in a semifinal wave that swept over them Saturday morning in the PIAA Class 3A Championships, at Hershey’s Giant Center.

HERSHEY — The question was posed to Aaron Seidel. When was the last time someone took you down?