MECHANICSBURG (Pa.) – Senior 133 pounder Kordell Rush finished runner-up, and sophomore heavyweight Youssef Ait Boulahri took fifth at the NCAA Southeast Regional Championships for the Delaware Valley University men's wrestling team.

With the second place finish, Rush punched his ticket to the Division III National Championships at U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa next week.

After a pair of wins yesterday, the second-seeded Rush defeated sophomore Josiah Gehr in a thrilling 12-10 sudden victory decision in the semifinals.

Rush jumped out to a 6-0 lead after the first period, but Gehr fired back in the second with six points of his own to tie the match going into the third period. In the third, Gehr got four near fall points 45 seconds in, but Rush quickly escaped and shot in for a takedown for three points, and a 10-9 match, with a minute left. Rush maintained position on Gehr the rest of the way and needed every second to secure the one riding time point and send the match to overtime knotted at 10-10.

Gehr shot first in overtime, but Rush was able to grab the ankle of his opponent and roll into position for the winning takedown to get him into the finals.

Sophomore heavyweight Youssef Ait Boulahri was the other Aggie still alive in the semifinals on day two. The sixth-seeded Ait Boulahri won two matches yesterday and was matched up against this year's MAC heavyweight champion from Alvernia, sophomore Palmer Rodenhaber in the semifinals this morning.

Rodenhaber controlled much of the match and won by a 10-2 major decision to send Ait Boulahri to the consolation bracket where he needed two wins to earn third place.

In the consolation semi-final, Ait Boulahri faced John Fulmer of Lycoming and suffered a loss by fall at 4:03 to drop him into the fifth place match against Thomas Tabatneck from York College.

Trailing 2-0 to start the third, Ait Boulahri started on the bottom and worked his way to the back of Tabatneck for a two-point reversal to tie the match with 1:34 remaining. He needed 1:12 of riding time to earn the point and win the match, and the sophomore from DelVal refused to let Tabatnek out of his grap as he earned the 3-2 decision and fifth place in the Southeast Region.

As a team, DelVal finished 14^th out of 20 squads for the second year in a row with 38 points. Fellow MAC member Stevens Tech. won the region with 163.5 points, followed by Washington & Lee (Va.) with 130 points. Another MAC team, Messiah, finished third with 123.5 points.