The Union Pines wrestling team claimed nine individual titles Saturday at the 2011 Cape Fear Valley Conference tournament, contested at Bob Ward Gymnasium in Cameron.

The dominate display came on the heels of a 68-9 Vike senior night league dual meet win over Douglas Byrd that capped off an undefeated CFVC regular season campaign. The conference title was the Vikings’ fourth in six years.

Philip Mondi (119 pounds), Brandon Berry (125), Chris Rubinosky (135), Danny Deardorff (140), Adrian Soto-Perez (145), Mike Brennan (160), Jared Bartram (171), Kelvin Morrison (189) and Josh Huskey (215) all took home first-place medals for Union Pines at the tournament.

Deardorff’s championship victory in the 140-pound division was his third tournament title of the season.

Union Pines, which is currently the top-ranked 3A tournament team by retrorankings.com, received second-place finishes from Billy Hornbaker (112) and Taylor Walker (130), while Darrell Utt (103) and Seth Owen (152) placed third at the event.

Other individual title winners at the tournament were Chris Shepherd (103-pounds, from Douglas Byrd), Nathan Zak (112, Western Harnett), Miguel Aguirre (130, Southern Lee), Paul Duggan (152, Western Harnett) and Aaron Underwood (285, Western Harnett)

With the regular season and conference seasons complete, Union Pines now shifts all focus to postseason competition. Tuesday, the Vikings were scheduled to host the first and second rounds of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association 3A dual team wrestling state playoffs. Union Pines was set to face Northern Nash in opening round action, while South Brunswick was scheduled to face Orange.

See thepilot.com for the latest updates.

It marked the second straight season the Vikes have hosted opening round dual playoff wrestling action at Bob Ward Gym. Last season Union Pines made it to the third round of the dual team playoffs, where the Vikes were eliminated in a closely contested 36-30 match to Orange.

At 16-0 on the season (as of Tuesday morning), Orange is the top-seed from the Carolina conference and came to Cameron as the second-ranked team in the 3A coaches dual poll and ranked fourth in the tournament team rankings.

Northern Nash (21-7) entered the playoffs as the second seed from the Big East Conference. South Brunswick is a wild card entry out of the Waccamaw Conference with a season mark of 21-3.

The winner of Tuesday’s four-team opening round bracket advances on to Thursday’s third and fourth round dual playoff action. Then comes the state championship meet on Saturday.

Contact F.W. Manning II at frakwm2@gmail.com.