Liberty’s Andrew Gunning came into the District 11 AAA tournament undefeated, but was still pushed down to a second-seed.

Throw in doubt about his potential of taking down top-seeded Niko Camacho of Bethlehem Catholic and it’s fair to say that Gunning had more than enough motivation heading into his Saturday night finals bout with his crosstown rival.

Gunning’s 3-2 decision over Camacho proved to any doubters that the top-ranked heavyweight in the state is for real and that any notions otherwise will continue to fuel the North Carolina bound recruit all the way through Hershey.

“I just knew that he [Camacho] was coming for me and that he really wanted to win that,” said Gunning. “I came in as a second-seed and I was just confused about that since I haven’t lost, but it didn’t matter what seed I was because I knew I was going to win.”

Gunning’s (35-0) first period takedown on Camacho was the decisive score in the bout, as Camacho (36-2) could never secure enough offense to push Gunning to the point of being uncomfortable.

It was the first district title for the Liberty senior and one that he certainly cherishes after all the work he’s put in.

“I just know that I’ve trained way harder than him [Camacho] and everyone else in the state,” said Gunning. “That’s basically my confidence booster. I’ve been going at it since the end of last season and I know this is my year.

“It’s cool to win my first district championship, especially here at Liberty, but my main goal is to win the state championship.”

Hurricane junior KJ Fenstermacher joined his teammate atop the podium after he toppled Northampton’s Dan Moran 5-2 in the 120-pound finals. Fenstermacher got some revenge after losing to Moran in last year’s district finals, only to then beat him the following week at regionals.

Fenstermacher (35-1), a junior, now hopes he can pull off another gold medal this week at the Northeast Regional tournament, where he’ll likely see Moran again.

“He’s my only loss this year after losing to him in the Holiday Classic semifinals,” said Fenstermacher after securing his second district title. “Since that match I knew I had to beat on his head to slow him down, because I don’t think he has much mental toughness.

“We’ve known each other since we’ve been five years old, so there’s really not much that we don’t know about each other. I just knew I wasn’t going to lose another district title to him.”

Liberty finished fourth in the team standings with 128.5 points and advanced five wrestlers to regionals.

Joining Gunning and Fenstermacher this week will be Anthony Emig (152), Christian Gallagher (182) and Andrue Velazquez (195).

Emig took fourth place, while Gallagher and Velazquez both took fifth, but Gallagher overcame the odds as a 15th seed at districts to keep his season going for one more week when he upset second-seeded Kolby Kleckner of Pottsville 2-1 in the preliminaries. He followed that up with a fall in 3:36 in the quarterfinals over East Stroudsburg North’s Martin Venable to make him the most unlikely semifinalist of the tournament.

Gallagher would lose to Dieruff’s Jayden Reyes 7-0 in that semifinal clash, which then gave Kleckner another shot at him in the consolation bracket.

This time Kleckner was able to secure a 3-2 victory in an ultimate tie-breaker en route to a third place finish. Gallagher would lose to John Brisco of Pocono Mountain West 3-2 in his fourth place consolation match.