Parkland’s Border keeps hot streak alive
Trojan wrestler goes 5-0 at Winter Duals. He is 20-4 for season after four-year absence from the sport.
Cory Border decided a week before wrestling practice began to return to the mat for the first time in four years.
Parkland is glad he did.
The senior 285-pound was 5-0 with five pins during Saturday’s Parkland Winter Duals to improve his season record to 20-4.
“It’s strictly just been instincts,” Border said, “knowing where to put my body so I’m in a great position.
“In the first tournament [at Penn Manor], I was doing moves that I didn’t know the name of but I was doing them right.”
Border’s four losses are to state-ranked opponents — twice to Liberty’s Jaden Freeman; once each to Garnet Valley’s Coltin Deery and Saucon Valley’s Nick Warnke.
The Trojans senior, despite barely tipping the scales at 230 pounds, was more than competitive in those setbacks.
“I don’t look at those as losses,” he said. “I just take everything I learned from those matches against great wrestlers.
“[Assistant] coach [Tarik] Haddad said, ‘No one is expecting anything out of you. Go out and prove them wrong.’”
Border, who spent the previous three years focusing on football, finished fifth at the Penn Manor Holiday Tournament and the Bethlehem Holiday Classic. He is ranked 22nd in 3A, according to papowerwrestling.com.
Parkland was 4-1 Saturday, losing only to Boyertown.
No showdown
The matchup between state No. 1 and No. 2 at 138 pounds never developed. Northampton’s Devon Britton (17-3), first in 3A according to papowerwrestling.com, suffered a left knee injury in the second period of his match against Cumberland Valley’s Cade Reichart.
A meniscus injury was the
early diagnosis for Britton, who is being recruited by, among others, Campbell University. Coach Cary Kolat, a four-time Pennsylvania champion, was in attendance Saturday.
Britton did not face secondranked Tyler Williams (19-2) of Souderton in Saturday’s final match.
It ruined an otherwise dominant day for Northampton, which finished 5-0 for the second year in a row.
“He twisted his knee,” Northampton coach Seth Lisa said. “I’m not really going to talk about what they think it may be. It didn’t look good. We’re hoping it’s not as serious as they think
and, hopefully, he’s back for the end of year.”
Britton had right knee surgery last summer, but had no problems with the left knee before the Cumberland Valley match.
Lisa’s crew won 63 of 70 bouts in pounding Boyertown (District 1), Mariana Bracetti (District 12), Central (District 12), Cumberland Valley (District 3) and Souderton (District 1).
State No. 2 (at 132) Julian Chlebove bumped up to 138 to beat Williams 7-3 in Northampton’s rout of the Big Red.
Jagger Condomitti, ranked sixth in 3A, beat No. 18 Connor Trowbridge 10-2 at 145 to finish off a 5-0 day.
“We ended with some good, competitive matches for [Chlebove and Condomitti],” Lisa said, “which is good leading into Escape the Rock in a couple of
weeks.
“We’re starting to see some progress with the other guys. They were a little bit more offensive. We also wrestled a couple other guys as well to experiment to see what need to do to close those gaps on teams that have beaten us. We got more information today and we’ll continue to evaluate in the middle there to see what our best lineup is.”
Up next
Parkland travels to East Stroudsburg South in an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference match on Wednesday. Northampton visits Whitehall, also Wednesday.
thousenick@mcall.com Twitter @TomHousenick 610-820-6651