Williamsport’s Top Hat kicks off Wildcat wrestling season
WILLIAMSPORT, PA – For Central Mountain High School and 23 other schools, the 2022-23 wrestling season kicks off Friday at 5 p.m. at the Tom Best Memorial Top Hat Wrestling Tournament in Williamsport and, for the survivors, ends March 9-11, 2023, in Hershey with the PIAA championships.
As for this weekend’s inaugural tourney, 24 teams are participating in the Top Hat event and Central Mountain and state Class AA power Saucon Valley are among the schools expected to battle for the title. Others expected in the hunt include Hempfield (WPIAL), Northampton, Muncy, Clearfield and Daniel Boone.
The Wildcats will be led by their three returning state place winners PIAA champion Dalton Perry, a sophomore, and two juniors, Luke Simcox, a fifth-place finisher the last two years, and Griffin Walizer, who finished eighth a year ago.
Simcox will start the season at 133 pounds; Perry, state champ at 126 last year, will be at 139 for the Top Hat and Walizer at 145; all three back-to-back-to-back.
The full CM lineup:
107 Collin Bauman
114 Jaggar Pardo
121 no entry
127 no entry
133 Simcox
139 Perry
145 Walizer, Luke Ananea
152 Braylen Corter, Hunter Donley
160 Gino Serafini
172 Jacob Weaver, Bryce Brungard
189 Rocco Serafini
215 Dakota McDermott, Giovanni Tarantella
185 Brayden Blackwell
Top Hat sessions times:
Friday 5 p.m. Preliminaries, round of 16, first round of consolations
Saturday 10 a.m. Quarterfinals, semifinals, consolation rounds
Saturday 5 p.m. Parade of Champions
Saturday 5:15 p.m. 1st-3rd-5th place bouts
Therecord-online will provide audio streaming coverage of the Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday rounds, with audio-video streaming for the 5:15 Saturday finals.
