Faith Christian brothers Fred and Joey Bachmann late last month won gold medals at the U17 Pan-American Championships in Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico.
Joey Bachmann, an unbeaten PIAA Class 2A champion in March as a freshman, won the 51-kg freestyle title with a 3-0 record and 25 team points representing Puerto Rico. He was 38-0 with 15 technical falls and eight pins in his first varsity season for coach Ben Clymer’s Lions.
Incoming freshman Fred Bachmann was 3-0 with 25 team points to win the 55-kg crown for Puerto Rico.
Pottsville junior Terrell McFarland won a gold medal for Team USA. His brother, who graduated this spring, is the Crimson Tide’s career leader in wins (146) and pins (107).
Elsewhere:
— Easton senior Aubrey Krazer and Palisades senior Savannah Witt, a pair of state champions, were part of Team Pennsylvania, which won the 2024 Air Force Special Warfare Junior National Duals in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Team PA lost in the pre-placing round to Colorado but then knocked off top-seeded California and won on criteria to reach the final, which it won 38-31.
Krazer and Witt in the spring were part of the Misfits girls wrestling team who won the NHSCA 2024 National Duals championship.
— Schuylkill County’s Sammy Julian will be leaving later this month for Paris to officiate his third Olympic Games. The Blue Mountain graduate, Schuylkill Haven employee and former Pottsville assistant coach previously worked the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020. He started his officiating career in high school before earning his national officiating license in 2008 before going international a few years later.
Julian was inducted this spring into the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
— The Ferguson family on June 20 lost everything in a house fire in Lehighton. Three sons — Mason, Lukas and Jacob — have all wrestled for the Indians. Jacob is an incoming senior.
A GoFundMe has been set up for the family: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-christines-family-rebuild-after-fire?lang=en_US
— Notre Dame-Green Pond is moving up to Class 3A for the next two-year cycle starting with the 2024-25 season because it reached the six success-point limit according to the PIAA formula that includes postseason advancement and having at least two transfers not made between eighth and ninth grade.
Two-time defending 2A state champion Faith Christian and 2024 runner-up Bishop McCort will remain in 2A. Notre Dame-GP lost to Faith Christian in the last two state quarterfinals before battling back to take third both times.
Morning Call reporter Tom Housenick can be reached at 610-820-6651 or at thousenick@mcall.com
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