Published: February 29, 2008 11:14 am         

Mountain Ridge hosting regional

Tournament begins today, concludes Saturday evening

FROSTBURG - The place to be this weekend for high school wrestling is Mountain Ridge, where wrestlers from 19 teams will battle in the Class 2A-1A West Region Championship Tournament.

Wrestling begins today, at 5 o'clock, with preliminaries. Quarterfinals are scheduled to start at 5:30.

The tournament continues Saturday with championship semi-finals and consolation quarterfinals at 10 a.m., followed by consolation semifinals at 1:30.

The consolation finals, for third and fifth places, start at 4 o'clock. The championship finals are slated to start at 6.

The 19 teams participating represent five counties: Allegany, Fort Hill and Mountain Ridge (Allegany), Northern and Southern (Garrett), Boonsboro, Smithsburg, North Hagerstown, South Hagerstown and Williamsport (Washington), Brunswick, Catoctin, Middletown and Walkersville (Frederick), and Century, Francis Scott Key, Liberty, South Carroll and Winters Mill (Carroll).

Numerous wrestlers in this weekend's regional are listed in the latest Maryland State Wrestling Association state rankings, including:

* Southern's Sean Sisler, No. 1 in the 285-pound class, Lex Ozias, No. 4 at 112, and George Scheffel, No. 3 at 125;

* Mountain Ridge's Stephen Whetstone, No. 5 at 140;

* South Carroll's Cam Hobin, No. 2 at 119, and Tyler Mullen, No. 2 at 171;

* Middletown's Brandon Johnson, No. 3 at 171, and Tyler Strube, No. 5 at 125;

* Walkersville's Jordan Walsh, No. 2 at 189, and Tyler White, No. 6 at 140;

Among the honorable mentions are Mountain Ridge's Noah DeVore (215), Southern's Jakob Scheffel (130) and Northern's Dustin Stough (160).

Mountain Ridge qualified 12 wrestlers for the regional. Southern qualified 11, Northern eight, Fort Hill six and Allegany one. The list of area qualifiers is in today's Scoreboard section.

The top four finishers in each weight class of the regional qualify for the state tournament next weekend at the University of Maryland's Cole Field House.