There are a few people, to say the least, who have been quite impressed with Dillon Evans’ devotion to wrestling.

Aside of mom and dad, none more than West Chester University head coach Joe Miller.

After graduating from Council Rock South High School two years ago, Evans didn’t feel at all comfortable at Virginia Tech. So he transferred to West Chester, a bit closer to home but a school without wrestling for the past twentysome years.

So Evans, with some help from Miller and friends around District 1, reversed the Golden Rams’ ways, pinned down a few commitments here and there and, yep, got the program started, even became the president of the so-called club.

“It’s only a club, so it’s not a way of life,” Evans said during an interview with The Daily Local News back in November. “It’s good because you can still do what you have a passion for. We have a lot of talent and can actually win some tournaments and get to nationals. It’s cool getting a chance to get back to wrestling and competing.“

Almost immediately, West Chester — which once owned a very respectable Division I program until it folded back in the 80s — was part of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association.

Impressive.

Perhaps not as much as what he accomplished last weekend during the NCWA Championships.

The 149-pound Evans didn’t just qualify for nationals, but ran the table with five dominating wins, the last a technical fall over Kansas State’s Thomas Pipes, to capture the gold medal.

His effort highlighted the week that saw two other District 1 graduates — Williamson Trade’s Eric Powell (Plymouth-Whitemarsh) and Rensselaer Poly Technic’s Ryan Michaels (Pottsgrove) — earn All-American honors as well by finishing fourth and seventh, respectively, at 157 pounds.

“Needless to say we’re very proud of Dillon,” said his father, Ed Evans, a District 1 champion himself for the former Council Rock High School back in 1981. “He put in an awful lot of hard work, not only in training, but also in getting the school’s wrestling club started in the first place last fall.”

Evans, who was seeded second to defending national champion Alex Broadwater of Maryland-Baltimore County, began his run with a technical fall, then added 9-2 and 7-3 decisions to get into the semifinals. That proved to be a challenge, when U.S. Naval Prep’s Chris Piccoletta took him into overtime. However, 42 seconds into the extra session Evans pinned him to get into the final with Pipes, who decisioned Northampton C.C.’s Cody Struening, who just earlier stunned Broadwater with a first-period pin in the quarterfinals.

Pipes was simply no match. Evans dominated from the outset, eventually rolling up a 20-3 technical fall that ended a few ticks into the third period.

Among those witnessing Evans’ final were a few big names from West Chester’s wrestling past, including John Purnell, now with Brute; former All-American Roger Sanders, who went on to a Hall of Fame coaching career at Bloomsburg; former coach Dale Bonsall, still a highly respected clinician in the Philadelphia region; and Pottstown graduate Alray Johnson, one of the Golden Rams’ most successful wrestlers in the late 60s and early 70s.

Evans, who won sections four times, districts twice and regionals once at Council Rock South, made a huge impression on Johnson this season. So much, in fact, Johnson gave him his wrestling shoes to wear in the final.

“That was special,” Evans’ father said.

Powell and Michaels gave District 1 two medalists at 157.

Just a freshman, Powell breezed into the semifinals before a 7-1 setback to Northampton Community College’s eventual runner-up Andrew Ritchie, a graduate of Nazareth. He blanked Central Florida’s Ryan Witzel to get into the third-place final, where he came up short in a 4-2 meeting with U.S. Naval Prep’s Matt Jackson.

Michaels, a junior who was third in 2007 and fourth a year ago, opened with a 2-0 shutout of Wichita State’s Kyle Cline and followed with a 2-1 decision over Winona’s Chad Stenson in the second round. He blanked, 2-0, in the quarterfinals by Ritchie. Despite the loss, Michaels came back with a 2-1 overtime victory against Connecticut’s Michael Battinelli, but lost a 3-1 sudden-victory encounter with No. 2 seed Mike Leonard of Grand Valley. Michaels then capped his week with a 4-1 decision in the seventh-place final against Greg Burger of Bowling Green.

Also competing at the NCWA Championships but failing to medal were Williamson Trade’s Paul Capriolo (Conestoga), who split his four bouts and came within one win of the medal rounds at 125; Penn State’s Jason Turpyn (Neshaminy), who went 0-2 at 125; and West Chester’s Brandon Banks (Wissahickon), who was 2-2 at 197. … Amherst’s head coach Eddy Augustin – a graduate of Spring-Ford who was featured in The Mercury last week – had a very successful debut. His two qualifiers, Guy Matisis (235) and Tim Rose (285), finished first and second, respectively, to help the Lord Jeffs finish 14th in the final team standings.

DIVISION II

Kutztown’s Jake Kemmerer, a senior from Crestwood High School, knocked off a pair of two-time defending national champions to win a second of his own and earn the Outstanding Wrestler award during last weekend’s NCAA Division II Championships at the University of Houston.

The 133-pound Kemmerer (27-1) put together a 4-2 decision over Nebraska-Omaha’s Cody Garcia, in the second round, then held on for a 2-1 tie-breaker win over Pitt-Johnstown’s previously unbeaten Shane Valko in the final for the gold medal. He had opened with a 5-0 shutout and, in between the victories over two-time champions Garcia and Valko — who had dealt Kemmerer his lone loss of the season two weeks earlier in the regional final — won a 1-0 tie-breaker.

Kemmerer finished 60-4 in two seasons at Kutztown and 91-11 overall in his college career. He had previously wrestled at UNC-Greensboro.

At Crestwood, Kemmerer was a three-time PIAA qualifier and familiar opponent for some District 1 fans. In 2002, he lost a 3-0 decision to Norristown’s Tim Harner and came back with a 6-0 win over Oxford’s Jarrett Hostetter at 103 pounds. Two years later, he pinned Council Rock South’s Dillon Evans at 119.

Nebraska-Omaha ran away with the team title with one individual champion and a record nine medalists overall amassing 146.5 points — well in front of runner-up Newberry’s 80.5 points.

DIVISION I

Eight graduates from the District 1 region will be on the opening-round card Thursday when the NCAA Division I Championships get under way at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.

Headlining the list will be Bloomsburg junior Matt Moley (Spring-Ford), who is 31-5 and coming off the big upset of Edinboro’s No. 1 ranked Gregor Gillespie in the 157-pound final of the Eastern Wrestling League Championships two weeks ago. Moley, a two-time state runner-up and three-time state medalist at Spring-Ford as well as an All-American last year for the Huskies, hadn’t beaten Gillespie in nine previous meetings.

Brothers and Council Rock South graduates Mike Rappo of North Carolina and Rick Rappo of Penn will be at 133 and 141, respectively. Mike, a redshirt sophomore and two-time PIAA state champion, is 24-8. Rick, a senior and former PIAA state champion as well, is 18-7.

Liberty’s Tim Harner (Norristown) brings a 25-8 mark into the tournament, where he’ll join the elder Rappo at 141. Also qualifying from the region are Virginia’s Chris Henrich (Germantown Academy, Lansdale resident), who is 36-1 at 165; Millersville’s Shane Smith (Upper Perkiomen), who is 32-13 at 174; Oklahoma’s Pat Flynn (Quakertown), who is 25-6 at 184; and North Carolina’s Dennis Drury (Germantown Academy, Jenkintown resident), who is 27-8 at 197.

Also competing this week will be North Carolina’s 157-pound Tom Scotton (20-13). Scotton is the son of Tom Scotton Sr., a standout at Bensalem High School and Bucknell University. … Henrich lost last year’s Atlantic Coast Conference Championships final to Maryland’s Mike Letts (Octorara), a two-time PIAA state champion who is red-shirting this season.

Thanks to computers, and the multitude of programs the creative minds have written or created for them, we’re capable of breaking down just about anything any way we choose … including wrestlers, their teams, the tournaments they compete in, even entire seasons.

Thanks to Brian Burychka and Mike Leister, the geniuses behind the local end of the NHSCA Web site, we’ve been able to grasp just how good, bad or indifferent things have been in the area and throughout District 1 (as well as the state, in some instances) for a number of years now. And combine what they’ve offered with years and years of old-fashioned research — that’s a lot of trips to libraries, a lot of reading and a lot of written notes — and we’ve been able to grasp just how good, bad or indifferent things have been in the area and throughout District 1 since wrestling became a sanctioned scholastic sport 75 years ago.

All the numbers can be a bit misleading, too.

Depending on what figures you look at, or what figures you choose to ignore, they can and will dictate the criticism, albeit it a good or bad analysis.

Which is why some of the most avid fans from the Philadelphia region were quick to hail last weekend’s showing at the PIAA Championships as another good year for District 1.

But was it?

If you count up the medals — all 22 of them — well, that’s not bad at all. Only in 2005, when the final count was 28, and the following year, when the total was 24, has the district fared better. And realizing there were only 13 medalists last year, it shows the district did pretty well overall in recovering from the 2008 fiasco in Hershey.

Looking inside those numbers provides a bit of a different evaluation, though.

For one, 22 medalists was the third-best total behind District 7 (25) and District 3 (24), both of which had six less qualifiers when wrestling began last Thursday afternoon, and just ahead of District 11 (18), which had 16 less qualifiers. Also, of the 22 medalists, there were no state champions and just two runners-up, and less than half — nine, to be exact — finished in the top half of their respective weight classes. As a matter of fact, more than half of them — 12, to be exact — finished sixth, seventh or eighth.

How one defines success at the state tournament — as a district overall — is one question that seems to get a variety of answers.

Just two finalists and no champions isn’t good, naturally. Not when you realize District 7 had 11 finalists and seven champions, District 3 had six finalists and three champions, and District 11 had three finalists and one champion. And 22 medalists, good when recognizing they represent the district’s third-highest total ever, lose a little value when realizing less than a third — just six — were second or third in their weight classes.

But the one glaring statistic that seems to jump out at anyone willing to add up the numbers (or check the NHSCA Web site), is the overall won-loss record at states. And while it’s a number few use to evaluate or define success at the state tournament, it’s a number that shows just how competitive a district is against the rest of the state.

District 1’s 48 state qualifiers last week were a combined 84-99, a winning percentage of .459 — the worst of nine other districts represented in the AAA bracket (not including District 12’s eight qualifiers who were 4-17). Of those 48 qualifiers, 10 went two-and-out, failing to win a match. Sixteen others won one match before being eliminated. Add those together, and you get more than half of the qualifiers, 26 in all, with a combined 16-52 mark.

District 1 wrestlers have been over the .500 mark just three times in 35 state tournaments, or since the PIAA split the championship into the current set-up of two enrollment classifications way back in 1974. The district’s best year, without a doubt, was 2005, with the record five AAA state champions, record 28 medalists and .507 overall winning percentage (104-101) from its 55 qualifiers. The only other two years the district finished above .500 was back in 1977 and 1978, when just 36 qualifiers in the win-or-be-gone, single-elimination format went a combined 35-35 (.500) and 39-38 (.506), respectively.

So, after digesting all those numbers, from past and present, how did District 1 do last weekend?

Not bad. Not bad at all.

District 1 has made significant strides in going toe-to-toe with the rest of the state since those single-digit and 10, 11, and 12 state-medalist counts back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Schedules have been beefed up, and the coaching staffs have gotten considerably better, two particulars most critics felt kept District 1 pinned down in mediocrity for so long. And, most important, the dedication — or commitment — to the sport by the wrestlers themselves, has improved dramatically.

So, yes, even though District 1 has more steps to climb to get completely out of the shadows of other districts and to firmly establish itself as the best in all of Pennsylvania, it’s at least making the effort, at least heading in that direction.

District 1’s top-seeds, or Southeast Regional champions, went 37-24 with 10 medals; regional runners-up went 18-27 with three medals; third-place qualifiers went 14-23 with five medals; and the overlooked fourth-place entries out of the region went 15-25 with four medals.

CHARTING THE PROGRESS

Owen J. Roberts’ Nick Fuschino, who was fifth at 152 pounds, closed with 130 career wins and in third place at OJR behind only Robert Hoffman (131) and Aaron Brown (134). … Boyertown’s Alex Pellicciotti, seventh at 130, broke his school’s single-season record for wins — 47, set in 2006 by Fred Rodgers and equaled the following year by Jesse DeWan. He will begin next season with 125 career wins, tied for fourth (with Jamie Soupik) on the school’s leaderboard. Barring injuries, he’ll likely pass Derick Schoenly (130), Tom Kniezewski (133), and DeWan (143) and into the top spot on the chart. Also, another 40-plus victories will put him in the Top Five on the area’s all-time career win chart. Teammate Tim Feroe (117) closed in a tie for 10th, while Matt Malfaro (108) has another year to move up from No. 16 at Boyertown. … Upper Perkiomen’s Jared Bennett, the area’s other senior state qualifier, closed his career with 121 wins.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

It’s hard not to hail the Rappos as the First Family of Council Rock South wrestling. Three brothers — Rick (2004), Mike (2005-06), and Mark (2008) — combined for four state titles. Matt, a sophomore, went 1-2 at 125 pounds during last week’s PIAA Championships and returns next season. So does youngest brother Billy, whose freshman season ended last month during sectionals.

While Matt was wrestling Saturday in Hershey, both Rick and Mike were doing the same on the college mats … and qualifying for the NCAA Championships. Rick, a senior at Penn, was third at 141 pounds in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships. Mike, sophomore at North Carolina, was third at 133 pounds in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships. Mike will be accompanied to nationals by head coach C.D. Mock, a state champion at Council Rock High School and later an NCAA champion himself for the Tar Heels.

STATELY NUMBERS

For those who may still not be convinced 145 was the toughest bracket of the AAA tournament, catch this: Crestwood’s Jake O’Hara (36-1), Central Mountain’s Dylan Alton (45-0), Cumberland Valley’s Joey Napoli (44-0), and Butler’s Cole Baxter (44-0) went into Saturday morning with a combined 169-1 record, and two of them (Alton and Napoli) were defending state champions. … Alton, who dumped Napoli for the title, goes for the hat trick as a senior next year. Baxter has two more seasons on his wrestling calendar.

Derry freshman Jimmy Gulibon won’t by overlooked by anyone next year, either. The relative unknown swept the gold medal at 103 and finished the season without surrendering a takedown … not one. He was 39-1, his lone setback coming by disqualification when his knee struck a rival’s head, and the opponent was unable to continue.

Penn-Trafford’s Shane Young became Pennsylvania’s 34th three-time state champion … and got booed after his ho-hum 5-3 overtime win in the 119-pound final.

Central Dauphin’s Tony Dallago finished eighth, fifth, and second in three previous appearances in the PIAA Championships. He finally got the elusive gold medal by pinning Council Rock North’s Jamie Callender in the 189-pound final on Saturday — his 18th birthday. Dallago finished with a 171-28 career mark.

Blue Mountain’s Josh Kindig won the 135-pound title, extending District 11’s streak of at least one state champion to 43 consecutive years. But for the first time since the PIAA split the competition into two enrollment brackets back in 1974, no team from the Lehigh Valley — that includes Easton, Nazareth, and Northampton — pinned down a gold medal. The Big Three didn’t exactly disappear, though, because Easton had four medalists, Nazareth had two, and Northampton had six.

Octorara’s Josh Smith finished second at 171 pounds to join Pottstown’s Joey Allen (1990-92) and Octorara’s Josh Smith (1999-2001) as District 1’s only three-time state medalists I nthe Class AA bracket. … The Berks Conference produced a record three state champions for the first time in the history of the PIAA Championships. Schuylkill Valley’s Wyomissing teammates Arty Walsh (112) and Nick Hodgkins (130) and Schuylkill Valley’s Colin Shober (135) were all golden in Class AA.

WILL BE MISSED

Earlier this month, the area lost one of its wrestling pioneers with the passing of Dick Hoover, who was very instrumental in helping start Spring-Ford’s program. Hoover spent the early part of his career guiding the junior high school teams throughout the 60s, then moved up to assist Mike Fabel in the early 70s and was on the staff when the Rams won their first wrestling title — the 1973 Ches-Mont League championship. Hoover returned to coach the junior high school teams and played a major role in organizing the district’s youth wrestling program before retiring as a coach as well as a teacher in the Spring-Ford School District. Hoover, because of his love of the sport and unwavering dedication to those who wrestled, was often credited as being a big part in Spring-Ford’s success through the years.