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In the 20-year history of the District 2 Class 3A Duals Tournament, no teams have been more successful than Hazleton Area and Delaware Valley.
The Cougars have been crowned champions of the event a record five times, while the Warriors have won it four times, the second most.
The two heavyweight programs will meet at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the finals at Pittston Area High School as they battle for a berth in the PIAA Team Championships.
The bulk of both squads’ success has come in the last 10 seasons, with three straight DelVal titles from 2011-13 and four of Hazleton Area’s crowns being from 2007-10.
But the two have only met in the finals once, a Hazleton Area win in 2010. Still, they are programs that are familiar with one another.
Just last year, they wrestled for the tournament’s third-place medal with DelVal pulling out a one-point win. After the match, DelVal coach Lou DeLauro predicted what would come this year.
“Lou came over to me – and I should be going to Vegas with him – because he came over to me and said ‘I think we’re going to be in the finals next year,’” Cougars coach Keith Maurer said. “I see some similarities. But I think this is going to be a three-, four-point match.”
There are six wrestlers from DelVal who wrestled in last year’s third-place match still on the roster, while nine Cougars who were involved last year are back.
DelVal also has five freshmen and sophomores seeing a lot of mat time, while the Cougars consist of six seniors. That could be an advantage for some teams, but Maurer knows better than to assume that against a tough program like DelVal.
“I don’t look at that because Lou does a great job,” he said. “They put their kids through the grinder and wrestle a tough schedule. So don’t look at their grade or record.”
One of Hazleton Area’s seniors is 138-pounder Jimmy Hoffman, who on Wednesday became just the third wrestler in Wyoming Valley Conference history to reach the 150-win milestone. Hoffman joined Matt Dragon (Lake-Lehman) and Justin Accordino (Coughlin) as the only wrestlers from the conference to do so. Earlier in the season, he broke the school’s previous wins record of 140 set by Jared Kay in 2010.
Hazleton Area has three other wrestlers who have reached 100 career wins this season with Carson Kinney, Anthony Martoccio and Chris Lasecki. Jake Maurer is just five wins shy of becoming the fifth Cougar to reach the mark.
“To get to 150 wins that’s tough to do. If you look at that and spread it over four years that’s 35-plus wins a year. That’s tough to do,” Maurer said. “Records are made to be broken. I don’t think I see that in the near future. That’s going to be a tough one.”
Tunkhannock faces Coughlin in a 3A consolation match at 10:30 a.m., trying to get to the third-place bout at noon against either West Scranton or Scranton.
The Class 2A final will feature an all-Lackawanna League match with No. 2 seed Western Wayne facing No. 1 seed Honesdale.
The Wildcats are trying to tie Lake-Lehman and Meyers for the most duals titles in tournament history. Meanwhile, the Hornets have never won the event. In fact, they’ve only been to the finals once when they were in 3A in 1999. The squads met earlier this season with Honesdale pulling out a two-point win.
In the 2A consolations, Meyers squares of against Lake-Lehman, and Hanover Area takes on Valley View. The winners of the 9 a.m. wrestlebacks battle in the third-place dual slated to start at noon.