Most Outstanding Wrestler, Coach of the Year, District XI Champions.

The District XI Wrestling Championship this past weekend added to the already stellar resume of the 2018-2019 Northampton Konkrete Kids wrestling team.

The team won the school’s first district wrestling title since 2009 by getting contributions from every wrestler in their lineup. That combined with two dozen pins over the course of the tournament produced a dominant performance that effectively wrapped up the championship before the consolation finals even started. Nazareth won all 11 of their bouts Saturday evening and their second-place score still fell eight points short of the total Northampton had at 4 p.m.

Julian Chlebove was named the AAA Most Outstanding wrestler. His pin of nationally-ranked Kenny Herrmann in the final solidified his status as a favorite to capture his third state title.

Head coach Seth Lisa praised his senior star after the tournament.

“Julian’s been an incredible leader having him back again this year has made a big difference in our team’s success,” Lisa said.

Lisa was named the District XI AAA Coach of the Year. With utmost humility he deflected the praise onto his team.

“It’s kind of funny, the kids do well, I get a trophy,” Lisa said. “These kids are such a tight-knit group. Success for one for means success for all.”

Adding a two-time state champion back into the lineup is going to improve the prospects of any team but consider the number of ways that this team improved over last year’s fifth place district finisher.

The team went from six regional qualifiers to 11. They went from zero district finalists to six, including two champions. Of the nine wrestlers who returned from last year’s district team, eight improved their results and the ninth reached the same round.

That kind of across-the-board improvement is the result of the hard work of many people and the leader of the organization deserves his fair share for making that happen.

The post season work will continue as there are regional and state championships still up for grabs the next two weekends. The usual suspects will be gunning for glory as Northampton and Nazareth both have 11 qualifiers into regionals. Liberty has 10 and Bethlehem Catholic has 9.

The PIAA AAA NE Regional Tournament will take place at Liberty High School. The preliminary round will start at 4:30 p.m. on Friday and the quarterfinals at approximately 6:30 p.m. The semifinals are at 11 a.m. on Saturday. The consolation and championship finals will take place at 5 p.m.