Year 3 for the Northampton girls wrestling team came to a close a bit earlier than fans of the Konkrete Kids had hoped. Marissa Fogel and Kiera Rickard both medaled, finishing fourth in their respective weight classes.

However, regional qualifying for the girls is extremely tough. There are not separate classes for AA and AAA and only the top 3 placers at each weight move on to compete for another week. With a deep lineup, but no star to replace two-time state medalist Mylea Lambert, this group of Kids showed better in dual meets than they did in the tournament format.

They had wins over several of the teams that finished ahead of them in the tournament standings: Nazareth, Easton, and Stroudsburg. They lost their match against fourth-place finisher Emmaus by a single point.

Fogel and Rickard both had to win three straight consolation bouts to put themselves in position to medal after losing in the quarterfinals.

Fogel pinned her way into the third-place match where she ran into Carolyne Katz of Pen Argyl. Katz had knocked the Northampton freshman into consolations with a pin and after a scoreless first period, replicated the feat.

Fogel finished her first varsity campaign with a 26-7 record and 19 pins. It is early, but it puts her on pace to become the first female 100-match winner for Northampton.

Rickard won a tough 5-2 decision over fourth-seeded Scarlett Bareither of Parkland with a third period takedown. She beat Ny’Zaiah Wyman of Freedom 4-0 and pinned fifth-seeded Jocelynn Cervenka of PV to clinch a medal.

The Kids’ sophomore was pinned in the consolation final in the second period after a scoreless first.

Emilee Gaughran and Taylor Sipel both fell one win short of the podium.

Gaughran made the championship semifinal before getting bumped to the consolation bracket via fall. She also suffered a feet-to-back pin in the second period of the consolation semis.

Sipel had a couple of harrowing consolation bouts where she fought off her back to win. Against Panther Valley’s Amelia Spino, she scored a reversal and fall after giving up 4 nearfall points. She next won a 7-6 decision where she was fighting to keep her shoulders off the mat as the buzzer sounded. Parkland’s Lily Snook, a 2025 state qualifier, knocker her out in the consolation semis.

“We’re young. It’s still disappointing not getting to next weekend,” lamented head coach Joe Tocci. “We really don’t have any superstars, but we are very consistent. We have a lot of good, decent wrestlers. They need more mat time in the off-season and that’s going to be the difference. We’re looking to put a club team together with some other schools in a coalition that I started in the preseason. We’ll run that in the summer and then get them started early in the fall.”

PIAA District XI

girls wrestling

top 12 team scores

(1) Parkland 225.0, (2) Nazareth 130.5, (3) East Stroudsburg South 117.5, (4) Emmaus 108.0, (5) Pine Grove 106.0, (6) Easton 99.0, (7) Catasauqua 84.5, (8) Southern Lehigh 80.5, (9) Pocono Mountain West 79.0, (10) Bethlehem Liberty 75.0, (11) Stroudsburg 71.5, (12) Northampton 71.0