For the second year in row, Jagger Condomitti found himself in the featured bout of the District XI AAA individual wrestling championships against a higher-ranked 145-pound foe from Bethlehem Catholic.

This year, he staged a dramatic comeback to claim his first district title with a 7-3 win in sudden victory.

Almost halfway through the third period the only scoring in the bout was a pair of escapes when Beca’s Cole Handlovic secured a takedown to go up 3-1. With 27 seconds left, Jagger was able to score a reversal and was left with the difficult task of trying to ride out Handlovic to force overtime.

“In the beginning of the match, I couldn’t hold him down,” Condomitti admitted. “That’s one thing I’m kind of bad at. I was kind of surprised honestly. I just had to keep fighting.”

In the sudden victory period, Condomitti started with a decisive attack and not only secured the takedown but took Handlovic to his back to secure the win.

Condomitti’s performance earned him the most outstanding wrestler award as voted on by the coaches.

Condomitti acknowledged that he will probably see Handlovic again in the postseason with even more on the line.

“We’re going to go change some stuff,” he said, “he’s going to go change some stuff and it could be a whole different match next week (in regionals). It could be a whole different match in the state finals.”

Condomitti’s younger brother Dagen almost got to a district title first.

In his 126-pound final against Pottsville’s Wiley Kahler, Dagen Condomitti appeared to score a short-time takedown in the first period, but the referee didn’t stick two fingers in the air, ruling the wrestlers were out of bounds.

The only scoring in regulation wound up being a pair of early escapes in the second and third periods, triggering overtime.

Dagen Condomitti had another near takedown in sudden victory, but it was Kahler that got the two points later in the period to claim a 3-1 win and the gold medal.

Dagen Condomitti reflected the experience of just missing out on the district title. “After the match I was down,” he said. “I was getting all mad at myself, but getting second in a really good tournament with a bunch of good kids… I should keep my head up because this isn’t the tournament I need to be winning. I need to win in two weeks.”

As a team Northampton finished third, 86 points ahead of 4th place Easton and Stroudsburg. They were 76 points behind Nazareth and 28 points behind Bethlehem Catholic.

Head coach Seth Lisa summed up the team’s performance, “We did really well I think. We had 13 entrants (none at 170); we moved 10 guys on to next week. We had a really good medal round. Our kids came prepared.”