COVID outbreak disrupts CB South wrestling performance

This season, Central Bucks South’s wrestling campaign has been about a war of attrition.
Due to a COVID-19 outbreak, the Titans had only eight available wrestlers at the Rock Yard Duals at Council Rock North last weekend. They dropped all four matches.
Host Council Rock North finished fourth from the eight-team field. Seniors 120-pound Tony Burke and 285-pounder Aden Roe along with sophomore 113-pounder Eren Sement all went 3-0 for the Indians. Burke has a 17-3 mark, Roe is 17-6 and Sement has a 18-2 slate this season.
For Central Bucks South, it certainly has been a challenging few weeks.
“Two days after we wrestled at the Chambersburg tournament (Dec. 29-30), we had 16 of our 28 wrestlers go down with COVID,” said head coach Chris Meister. “In total, we had 19 total wrestlers go down with illnesses last week.”
“It was a very difficult day of wrestling at the Rock Yard because we were giving away 30 points to other teams at the start due to our five forfeits.”
Junior 132-pounder Gabe Whittington, a fifth-place Southeast Regional finisher last year, continued his banner season at the Rock Yard tournament as he went 4-0 with a pair of decisions and forfeits. He is 16-2 with eight falls on the season.
Meister saw a bit of a twist in his day, primarily due to the state of the team.
“Two of his wins were by forfeit because the opposing teams were afraid to wrestle Gabe,” said Meister. “They avoided putting their wrestler out against him even though they had a wrestler in his weight class.”

Despite his team’s recent woes, Whittington believes his team has weathered their plight.
“We still have had a good season,” he said. “We’ve worked hard in the offseason to prepare us for this year. All that hard work is starting to pay off.
“CB South has a great coaching staff that’s helping me get to where I want to be this year. My goal is to get to states this season.”
Meister, who has been turning around the program the past three years, remains optimistic his team can reverse its current trend. Along with Whittington, sophomores 126-pounder Jake Neill (12-3) and 285-pounder Collin Goetter (10-4) are two other successful staples in CB South’s lineup.
The Titans previously were forced to cancel their Jan. 5 match against Central Bucks East because they had only five healthy wrestlers available. That match has been rescheduled for Feb. 9.
“Now that the majority of our team has been sick with COVID, we can hopefully get through the rest of this season without any more disruptions like we experienced the past few weeks,” he said. “We are kind of glad this happened now and not in February or March.
“Once we get all of our wrestlers back this week, we expect to be a young, competitive team as we displayed in our first duals that we wrestled in December.”

Updated: Jan. 17, 2022

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