“I’m extremely pleased with our season,” says Head Coach David Wilcox, “it was the best as a team in over a decade .. with five freshmen in our starting lineup. Everyone really stepped up and contributed.”

The Warriors began the season with a pair of league losses to Athens and Towanda before going to the Southern Tier Wrestling Officials Association Holiday Classic at Jamestown (NY) Community College and placing 2nd as a team, led by a 108-pound title won by freshman Zander Wilson. 

A dual meet win over Canton was followed by another runner-up finish, at the South Williamsport Mountaineer Invitational, where Williamson crowned three champs in Wilson and juniors Hunter Simonds and Luke Sottolano. 

Williamson then ran off three league wins .. over Wellsboro, Wyalusing and Northeast Bradford .. and next competed at the Southern Tier Memorial, placing 9th as a team with another title for Wilson and a 4th-place finish for Sottolano, who beat New York State Champ Troy Beeman from Waverly during the tourney. 

The Warriors then hosted a pair of dual meet tourneys sandwiched around a win over Troy, winning all six matches at the Battle of the Border Duals and going 4-1 at the Tioga County Duals with a lone loss to North Penn-Liberty. 

Williamson earned a No. 5 seed for the District Duals and beat No. 10 seed Sullivan County 44-27 before falling to Hughesville and Mifflinburg to end their dual meet season. 

The Warriors took 12 wrestlers to the North Section tournament, placed 3rd and had six advance to Districts, led by champ Wilson (107) and including runner-ups Simonds (121), Ben Freeman (215) and Sottolano (285) and 4th-place finishers Noah Robinson (127) and Tim Freeman (189). 

Wilson won a District title and advanced to the Northeast Region championship along with Sottolano (3rd) and Simonds (7th) as the Warriors finished 13th. Wilson would suffer his first defeat of the season at Regionals but wrestled back to earn a State berth with a 3rd-place finish and Sottolano also placed 3rd to give the Warriors’ two wrestlers making the trip to Hershey.

Sottolano dropped his first two bouts at States while Wilson went 1-2 as both Warriors’ postseason runs came to a close. 

Wilcox pointed to the numerous freshmen, particularly Wilson, as one of the highlights of the Warriors’ season. 

“We’re a young team with five freshmen in our starting lineup,” says Wilcox, “I’m really pleased with the way they stepped up and contributed to the team. Especially Zander .. he was considered an underdog all year. He wasn’t an underdog in my eyes .. I felt confident in him no matter his opponent. It’s exciting to think about the next couple of years for him and our whole team.”

Williamson had 9 wrestlers finish with at least 22 wins on the season, led by Wilson (43-3), Sottolano (39-11), junior Simonds (32-12), junior Ben Freeman (29-10), freshman Walker Hyde (28-10), senior Tim Freeman (25-18), freshman Steve Olson (22-13), junior Anthony Baker (22-11) and freshman Kohen Flynn (22-14) while other contributors on the year included senior Robinson (14-7), freshman Lhandyn Nauman (12-23), junior Jeremy Fuhrer (11-14) and sophomore Ryder Dacheux (9-15). 

The Warriors’ will return the bulk of their lineup next season, an exciting prospect for Wilcox.

“We’re excited to see how Luke (Sottolano) and Ben (Freeman) top off their high school careers next season,” says Wilcox, “They both have a lot of potential .. time to step up. And we have more than a few kids on the cusp of taking it to the next level. It’ll take work this summer but I believe we have a great core group.”

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