Jaden Freeman has battled injuries over the past two years to prevent him from participating in the District 11 postseason. Last weekend in his home gymnasium, Freeman finally took advantage of his chance to compete and came away with a gold medal.

Freeman was one of four Liberty finalists, but the only one to come away with a district title, as he topped Northampton’s Hunter Werkheiser by a 5-3 decision in Saturday’s championship finals.

The Hurricanes had an impressive weekend, finishing third in the team standings with 214.5 points, nudging rival Bethlehem Catholic (206.5) into fourth place, while advancing 10 wrestlers to this weekend’s Northeast Regional 3A tournament back at Memorial Gymnasium.

For Freeman, Saturday night was a shot at redemption, while taking on a very familiar foe.

“I couldn’t wrestle my 10th grade year because I injured my foot,” Freeman said after outlasting Werkheiser. “Junior year I broke my hand. I came back this year to get what I wanted. This was one of my goals to take off my bucket list, but my ultimate goal is to get to states and win it and if not, place.”

Freeman was able to push the pace of the match by scoring the only two takedowns over six minutes, registering the match’s opening takedown in the first period and then closing the third period out with the final one.

With both heavyweights primed to see each other again at regionals, Freeman doesn’t mind mixing it up with Werkheiser another time.

“I’ve wrestled Werkheiser like 89 times,” Freeman said. “We have a really good rivalry going. It goes back and forth and I came through when it counted and I would love to see him again next in the finals too.”

The other three Liberty finalists included Tal-Reese Flemming (113), Matt Maloney (120) and Damen Moyer (195).

Flemming lost to Nazareth’s Andrew Smith by a 5-1 decision, while Maloney fell to Stroudsburg’s Cameron Enriquez 8-3. Moyer dropped a 3-2 decision to Northampton’s Jayden Bortz, as Bortz used a late escape in the third period to squeak out the win.

The other Hurricanes to medal were: Connor Werner (106, third), Kevin Hennessy (182, third), Mike Torres (126, third), Jason Rezac (145, fourth), Josh Talijan (170, fourth) and Travis Brown (132, fourth).

Freedom moved three wrestlers onto regionals, as Max Marrero (195) brought home the highest finish with a third place medal following a 9-3 decision over Pottsville’s Tymothy Nevadomsky.

Luis Vargas (113) and Connor Huber (120) each finished in fifth place.

Wrestling begins at 4:30 pm on Friday with quarterfinals slated for 6:30 p.m.

Saturday’s schedule sees the semifinals getting under way at 11 a.m. and finals set to take off at 5 p.m.