Local Tour Stops #4-6

   Over the first two days this week, I made my way to get a view of three teams — Bedford, Chestnut Ridge, and Northern Bedford.
   My visit to Bedford was fairly brief, and unfortunately, some of the Bisons' wrestlers were not in the practice room when I was there. That said, numbers at Bedford are not usually a problem, as the program has a rich tradition and plenty of kids at the lower levels. Despite the absence of some, it did look like Brian Creps will have enough to fill his lineup, which these days is becoming more of the exception rather than the rule.
   Bedford did take a hard hit from graduation, losing the likes of Ryan Easter and Garrett Thomas among others, but having Jonathan Gabriel back gives the Bisons one of the top studs in the area.

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    At Northern Bedford, there's a lot of optimism, and rightly so. The Black Panthers could certainly be a darkhorse in District 5, though I'm not sure there's quite enough heavy duty firepower in Loysburg to seriously challenge Chestnut Ridge or Berlin, at least for this season.
    But Northern will have as many as 10 returning starters and should be solid through the middle of the lineup. Like most coaches, Brian Dutchcot works out right alongside his wrestlers. My time in the NBC room included the former Ridgway grappler keeping up with the youngsters in a few series of wind sprints.

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    I hit Chestnut Ridge earlier today, where the Lions are prepping for their District 5 title defense. It's no secret that Greg Lazor's group is loaded and the match at Berlin on January 6 has been circled for a long time as an early barometer on who's the favorite in D5. You can see more on each team in an earlier blog post, titled Top Team Talk.
   One of Lazor's first questions to me was, "Are you going to Powerade?"
   The Powerade is one of the big regular season tournaments on the east coast missing on my wrestling bucket list, but this year, the second day falls on my son's first birthday, too. So 2014 is out, but hopefully Ridge will continue to make that trip so I can get paid to attend.
   Nonetheless, given how good the Lions should be, I'll be seeing plenty of them throughout the winter.