By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

It’s on to the regionals Friday and Saturday for 61 Osceola County wrestlers.

Osceola’s Kowboys won their third straight district championship last week and qualified all 14 of their wrestlers, including 10 district champions, for the 3A-2 regional at Brandon. Gateway and Liberty also will compete at Brandon.

St. Cloud will host the 2A-2 regional, which brings 2A-5 district champion Edgewater, Celebration, Harmony and defending state champion Spring Hill Springstead to town. Thirty local wrestlers will compete there.

Poinciana takes four wrestlers to the A-2 regional at Lakeland Tenoroc Friday.

All regional tournaments begin noon Friday and resume with the semifinals at 10 a.m. Saturday. The finals start at 6 p.m. Admission is $7 per session.

The top four from each weight class will advance to the state tournaments in Lakeland Feb. 17-18.

Osceola (289.5) won the team championship led by individual champs Ariel Dominguez (106, 37-5), Cody Dana (120, 24-11), Juan Arroyave (126, 24-1), Tim Locksmith (132, 34-4), Fox Baldwin (138, 45-2), Paul Zupofska (145, 33-7), Spencer Lacey (152, 33-9), Chris Pagan (170, 39-5), Ben Cruz (195, 30-11) and Franklyn Lantigua (285, 36-11).

Hakeem Butler (113, 26-18), Kenny Martin (152, 34-8) and Jhlalen Flanders (182, 29-7) reached the finals, and Rashad Marshall (195, 38-9) was third.

In just about any other region in Florida, Osceola would be favored to win the championship, but nine-time defending state champion Brandon is ranked No. 3 in the nation, and Palm Harbor, Bradenton Manatee and Plant City Durant all have elite-level programs in Region 2.

“And, there’s pretty good teams coming out of our district like Gateway and Viera. We’ll have wrestlers with three-time state champions in their bracket,” Osceola Coach Jim Bird said.

The Kowboys’ Baldwin leads the team with 31 pins. Baldwin won the 119-pound Class A state championship for Lake Highland Prep last year. Dominguez was second at the Class 2A state meet for Harmony last season, and Locksmith is a four-time state qualifier. Martin and Pagan placed at state last year, when OHS had a school-record eight state qualifiers.

“I think at least six of our guys should get through (to state), and maybe a lot more,” Bird said. “We’ll have to wrestle well. We did pretty well last week, but we had a couple of classes where we didn’t wrestle to our potential, so that’s something we’ll work on in practice.”

Gateway (107) was third at the district meet and had a champion at 113 in Alex Velez. The Panthers’ Bryan Rosa (126), Austin Seward (138), and Woodly Deseme (285) reached the finals. Christian Vazquez (160) and Josh Pizarro (182) were third.

“We had a pretty good district tournament. We only had six make it out, a few came up short. They are young so hopefully with another year of work they will go further,” Panther Coach Jon Smorin said. “Our region is definitely one of the hardest, if not the  hardest, in the state. We have a few kids who can make it (to state), so we’ll see what happens.”

Velez was sixth at last year’s state meet and Vazquez reached the final eight.

Liberty (80.5, 6th) had one champion, two-time state placer Aric Fernandez (182), among its seven regional qualifiers. Also advancing are Rob Torres (113) and Luis Ruiz (195), who were third, and fourth-place finishers Connor McKinnon (120), Eiyateau Eiyango  (132), Fernando Tirado (145), and Jeremy Fernandez (152).

If the 2A-2 regional at St. Cloud this weekend is as competitive as the 2A-5 district tournament was last week, then fans will be in for a thrill.

Edgewater (162.5) edged Osceola County teams Celebration (153), Harmony (149.5) and host St. Cloud (139) for the team championship.

All of the county’s teams will be well-represented at the regional tournament.

Celebration’s David Atkins (126) and J.J. Francis (152) won individual titles and the Storm had a chance to win their first district championship in the final match.

“We had 10 wrestlers, eight at their regular weight and two more who went up two or three classes to get a few team points, and it worked,” Coach Vic Lorenzano said. “Mark Fam went up three classes at 170 and gave up as much as 25 points to place third and earn big points for the team. Derek Dunning (182) surprised everybody with two big wins, including a 1-point win in the semifinals, for big team points.”

Freshman Nigel Joliffie (106) and Tyler Phelan (160) and Alvaro Norena (285) reached the finals for Celebration,  and Everett Suarez (138) and Skylar Lerner (145)  placed third.

Nine of 10 Storm wrestlers advanced.

“All in all, it was an inspired performance by the entire team,” Lorenzano said.

Because Fam and Dunning went up in weight at the district, their chances of advancing through the regional are remote, but several others should advance, said the coach.

“I like our chances of getting four through,” he said. “It will be a fight for all of them because our draws are extremely tough with Springstead, Lake Gibson (last year’s Class 2A runner-up), Citrus, Nature Coast, Hernando and a lot of Polk County schools

Harmony, which is sending a school-record 12 wrestlers to the regional, had three champions in sophomore Chris Furber (106), junior Zach German (132) and senior Dalton Williams (195).

The Longhorns’ Tanner Williams (220) was a runner-up.

Third for Harmony were Alex Muralles (113), Sean Speer (126), Rey Almonte (160) and Andrew Davis (285), while Brenten Cline (120), Jeremy Beesley (138), Dylan Gilhart (145) and Alex Calderon (170) were fourth.

“I was happy with the effort our guys put in,” Harmony Coach Chris Todd said. “Being such an inexperienced team it was a great boost for us finishing just 5.5 points out of second place.”

Todd said his team must maintain its focus to succeed this weekend in what is known as “The Region of Doom.”

“It is going to be a tough weekend for everyone,” he said. “Like last weekend we will come out focused and wrestle to the best of our ability. That’s all I can ask of my guys.”

The host Bulldogs will put nine wrestlers on the mat for the regional meet, Coach Mat Milton said.

St. Cloud’s champions were Joe McGinley (113), Ryan Finneran (138) and Josh Rowe (182).

Chris Scavone (152) and Jon Rivera (195) were third and Za-Tique Taylor (126), Jorge Coronel (132),  Ray Moran (220) and Alex Southall (285) placed fourth.

Coach Matt Milton

expected at least two of his wrestlers, McGinley and Finneran, to advance to state meet.

“They can get through any team in this region and probably the state, except that Lake Gibson has a couple of tough kids in their classes,” Milton said. “I’d say Josh has a chance at 182, and I’d like to say our heavyweight (Southall) can get there, except there are seven state-ranked wrestlers in that class. Three kids who probably can place at state won’t make it.”

Poinciana Coach Adam Hopman is taking four wrestlers to the A-2 regional at Tenoroc, led by runner-up Jerry Bazilme (132).

Brandon Harris (195) was third, and O’neal Thomas (182) and Winston Moss were fourth.