History was made when seedings for the PIAA Wrestling Championships were released on Sunday.

In recent years, the committee would randomly draw pre-seeded brackets based on regional seeds. But after past criticism, especially last year when returning state finalists Luke Pletcher from Greater Latrobe and Nazareth’s Sammy Sasso met in the quarterfinals, a change was decided.

Last summer, the PIAA met and announced an amendment to the process. Now, if there’s more than one returning state finalist, they will be seeded on opposite ends of the bracket and can’t meet until the finals.

So when Hazleton Area’s Jimmy Hoffman lost for just the second time this season when he dropped the Class 3A Northeast Regional final, he lost the chance of possibly being the No. 1 seed in the 132-pound state bracket despite being state runner-up last year. Hoffman is the second seed out of the Northeast region.

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The road to Hershey officially began when Hoffman and the other eight Wyoming Valley Conference state qualifiers learned who their opponents will be when the tournament kicks off on Thursday at the Giant Center.

Hoffman will see Waynesburg Central’s Caleb Morris in the second round. And if he’s to get back to the Class 3A state final for the second straight year, the senior would likely face unbeaten Cole Manley from Altoona (21-0), a state silver medalist in 2015, in the semis.

Tunkhannock’s Tommy Traver is also in the Class 3A 132-pound bracket, on the opposite side. The sophomore will be in a preliminary round bout against Jobe Chishko from Penn Trafford. If Traver wins that match, he would face Zack Trampe from Council Rock South in the second round. Trampe was state runner-up in 2015.

Meyers’ Colin Pasone (120), a returning state qualifier for the WVC and regional runner-up, will start his quest for state glory in the Class 2A tournament against Upper Dauphin’s Bronson Garber (39-1), who is currently ranked No. 1 in the state.

Lake-Lehman’s R.J. Driscoll, the third returning state qualifier for the conference starts off his quest in the 132-pound Class 2A tournament versus Caleb Dowling of St. Joe’s Catholic School.

Driscoll’s teammates Bob Long (120) and Bob Lipski (145) will square off against Burrell’s Trent Bechtold and Kody Komara, respectively in their opening-round bouts. Hanover Area’s DJ Erickson (138), the fourth seed from the Northeast region, faces Kennard-Dale’s Nick Bradley in the pigtail round.

Hoffman’s teammate Carson Kinney (195), regional runner-up, has Dave Henninger from Dubois in the second round, while Dallas’ Xavier Barber (170) has a bout with Ryan Finn from Pottsgrove in the second round.

WVC Shutout

For the second straight year, the Wyoming Valley Conference did not crown a regional champion in either classification. It marks just the second time in more than 60 years that the league was shutout from golds at the events in two consecutive years. The only other time that occurred was in 1955-56.

When Valley View’s Brett Uhrin won the 138-pound Class 2A regional gold, he prevented all of District 2 from being shutout entirely for the first time since 1994.

The WVC improved on last year’s number of six state qualifiers with nine advancing this year. And the five in Class 2A is the most in the classification is the second-most for the league in the last 11 years.

On the flip side, the four qualifiers in 3A, is tied for the least amount of state qualifiers from the conference in that period, and it’s happened two straight years. This coming after closing the gap slightly on District 11 in 2015 with eight state qualifiers.

“As a district, I think we gotta get out and wrestle more tougher competition a little more and there’s some other things the coaches are talking about,” Hazleton Area coach Keith Maurer said. “Every year, we want to try to compare ourselves to them. Let’s face it, they’re tough. … I hope that some day before I leave this earth that District 2 is comparable here with District 11. But year to year, we’re up and down. And this year, numbers wise we’re down a little bit. But I do believe we have some good young kids back there in District 2.”

Hawks flying

Hanover Area broke its streak without a state qualifier last year when John Sheridan advanced to become the first Hawkeye to do so since 2002.

When DJ Erickson reached the PIAA Championships on Saturday, it marked the first time the Hawkeyes had state qualifiers in consecutive years since doing so for six straight years from 1997-2002.

For the 15th time …

Lake-Lehman qualified three wrestlers for the PIAA Championships on Saturday with Long, Driscoll and Lipski. It marked the first time since 2003 that the Black Knights will have that many wrestlers in Hershey.

But it’s the 15th time in school history that Lake-Lehman will be represented with at least three athletes at states. The most the team has ever had in one state event came in 1984 when the Black Knights had seven qualifiers.

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By Dave Rosengrant

For Times Leader

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