Area prep wrestlers will begin competition in the annual state tournament series with sectional action Saturday.

The local sectional site, one of 32 statewide,  for the 75th annual tournament will be at Plymouth High School. The 10-team field at Plymouth will feature Warsaw, Wawasee, Triton and Tippecanoe Valley. Also in the sectional will be the host Rockies, along with Bremen, Caston, Culver Academy, Culver and Rochester.

Action at Plymouth is slated to begin at 9 a.m. Saturday. Culver Academy is the defending champion at Plymouth. The host Rockies went 7-0 in the NLC round-robin and earned the conference co-championship with Elkhart Memorial.

Wawasee earned a fourth-place finish at the NLC Championships last weekend. The Warriors were led by senior Nick Rozow, who earned the league championship at 160.  Warsaw finished in eighth place at the conference meet. The Tigers top wrestlers were Luis Cervantes at 126 and Huntley Davis at 160.

The Whitko wrestling team will compete in the Fort Wayne Carroll Sectional. The 10-team field at Carroll is slated to begin action at 8 a.m. Saturday.

A slew of local squads will also be in action at the Elkhart Memorial Sectional, which begins at 9 a.m. Saturday. That field, includes the host Crimson Chargers who won the NLC Meet at Wawasee last Saturday, along with Elkhart Central, Concord, Fairfield, Goshen, Jimtown, Northridge and NorthWood.

The top four finishers in each of the 14 weight classes at Saturday’s sectional round advance to the regional on Feb. 2. Local regional hosts are Rochester for advancing individuals from the Plymouth Sectional and Goshen for qualifiers from the Memorial Sectional. Semistates are Feb. 9 at Merrillville and at the Fort Wayne Coliseum.

The State Finals for the tourney will be held Feb. 15-16 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.