The Whitehall wrestling team closed out the regular season with a win over Palmerton High School, and now they’ll turn their attention toward the individual tournament that gets underway next weekend.

The Zephyrs ended the season with a 63-16 victory over the Blue Bombers. The win also puts a wrap on their dual meet season, finishing 11-8 overall this year.

Mike Ajami got things rolling for the Zephs, pinning Cody Green in 3:03. Randy Okungu followed with another fall, decking Aiden Melber in 0:50.

Whitehall then benefitted from a string of forfeits to take a commanding 30-0 lead, and that was further padded by Carlos Lorenzo’s pin at 113 over Grant Scott. Lorenzo decked Scott in 1:21.

At 120, Kevin Urena continued the Zephyrs ability to rack up bonus points, pinning Colton Stroup in 1:51.

Josh Grol earned a 5-3 decision over Shawn Gardner at 126, while Kai Clark got them back into bonus points with a pin against Nate Sterner in 2:34.

Finally, John Kaintz closed out the match with his pin of Chris Lucykanish in 0:44 at 170.

Head coach Tim Cunningham said that it was nice getting a win in their final match.

Their attention will now shift to the District XI Individual Wrestling Tournament that gets underway on Feb 23 and 24.

This is the moment that the Zephyrs have been building toward all year.

“We are now focusing on making the little improvements on our fundamentals this week with technique,” said Cunningham. “In order to win close matches we need to have strong fundamentals and start being better defensive wrestlers and turning that defense into offense.

“We basically are working on scoring points and sticking to what works for each wrestler at this point.”

Cunningham said that it’s also important to keep a positive mental attitude and trying to get a little better each day.

“The wrestlers need to wrestle with the mindset of scoring the next point and finding a way to win the close matches,” said Cunningham. “The wrestlers are working and concentrating on what works best for them in a match so they feel comfortable in any match situation and can find a way to score.”

The D-11 tourney features some of the best wrestlers in the state, and maybe even the country. Advancing will take a lot of work and desire.

“Our guys know we wrestle in the best district in the country, and in order to be successful at any level in two weeks they need to wrestle their match and go out and wrestle to the best of their ability,” said Cunningham. “Win or lose, if they prepared and wrestled as hard as they could, they should be proud of themselves. We are proud of each and every wrestler that wrestled throughout the season and are still wrestling in the postseason the next two weeks.”