Before the Bryan and A&M Consolidated wrestling teams load the moving vans for their new digs, the Vikings and Tigers will make at least one more trip and hope for two.

Ten wrestlers from Bryan and three from Consol have earned berths in the field for the Region 4 meet that will be held Friday and Saturday at the Blossom Athletic Complex in San Antonio.

The top four wrestlers in each weight class will advance to the state championships, which will be held in Austin on Feb. 22-23.

Last year, Bryan sent three wrestlers and Consol had one qualify for the state meet. Vikings coach Mike Zito and Tigers coach Brian Wessel hope to do as well or better, even though both teams went through a trying season that included injuries and plans to move to new sites next season.

The Bryan wrestlers will move from their gym at the Lamar campus to Rudder High School to start the next school year. For now, Zito's traveling plans involve getting as many Vikings as possible to the Delco Center for the state meet.

"There's a good possibility a lot of these kids may go on to the state meet," Zito said. "We are going to have 10 guys wrestling at regionals, and if we could take half of that bunch on to state, which is definitely possible, it would be a good end to the year.

"It's been a hard year to stay focused as coaches and athletes, seeing all these guys we usually practice with disappear. We usually finish the season with about 30 or 40 guys in the room, and this year we're finishing with about 20 guys."

The Bryan contingent will be led by 125-pounder Javier Aguilar, who made the state meet at 112 pounds last year. In more than 30 matches this season, Aguilar has just three losses.

"Javier would be our best chance [to advance]," Zito said. "He could start as the No. 1 seed."

Aguilar and 189-pounder Zach Hiney both qualified to state last season. Hiney finished second at the regional meet and was inches away from pinning his opponent in the final.

"He's had a hard year, but he's a senior and he knows this is it," Zito said. "He's not going down without a fight."

Alex Aguilar (140) also should contend for a trip to state. He finished fifth at regionals last year and was an alternate for state.

Some of the most successful Vikings will have to get through very difficult fields to make state. The regional is loaded with talent to challenge Kevin White (130), Logan Meekma (103) and Victor Thomas (119).

Bryan's other regional qualifiers are David Orozco (145), Jorge Gonzalez (135), Thomas Forster (160) and Omar Aguilar (171).

"We are one of the biggest teams there," Zito said. "Where you place at district, regionals and state is a numbers game -- how many kids you take there.

"The team thing would be extra. Austin Westlake is one of the strong teams. Austin Bowie is a strong team. Both of them only qualified 10 or 11 guys, so we're right in the middle of that."

Consol will take a smaller contingent to the regional meet, but Wessel says the Tigers have at least a couple of contenders for state in Jacob Hernandez (140) and Levi Leatham (189). Consol, which had to switch its workout site this year while its fieldhouse was being built, also will have Jonathan Shugart at 119 pounds.

NOTES -- Both local teams have wrestlers who made the alternates list, hoping to get a chance to compete at regionals if one of the qualifiers can't compete. The Bryan alternates are Tracey Hodges, Fred Blackshear and Jacob Taylor. Consol's alternates include Tyler Ward, Conner Roussel, Dillon Bartek and Nick Barber.

The regional meet will be a 16-entry, double-elimination tournament in each weight class, with the possibility of wrestle-back matches to determine the fourth qualifier for state.

• Larry Bowen's e-mail address is larry.bowen@theeagle.com.

 Google 

 Yahoo 

digg

 del.icio.us 

 facebook 

 Slashdot