Tracking the area’s high school wrestling stat leaders through Jan. 28

There may not have been many matches this past week, but there sure was a lot of movement on the top-10 lists.

There were a mere six duals last week, with four of the six teams competing in tournaments over the weekend. Bald Eagle Area won the Ultimate Warrior Tournament held by West Branch, while St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy finished third and Philipsburg-Osceola came in sixth.

Baylor Shunk was Penns Valley’s lone champion in the Rams’ 11th-place finish at the Fred Bell Tournament in Grove City, but he sure made a name for himself in this week’s rankings.

Take a look:

Technical falls

For the second time this season, Shunk recorded three technical falls in one week to leap into the top spot of the category. He now has nine this season, which is two more than the Wolves’ Caleb Dowling.

Shunk’s first came in Penns Valley’s dual with Bald Eagle Area on Wednesday. He racked up 19 points to finish off Zander Ballock 30 seconds into the third period. Shunk used back-to-back tech falls to reach the finals at the Fred Bell tourney. He outscored his two opponents by a combined 34-2, scoring 17 points in each match. He was so dominant that he didn’t give up a single point in his semifinals match.

Others that made moves in the category were St. Joseph’s Zach Witmer and the Eagles’ Cooper Gilham. Each wrestler added one tech fall to their totals this week. Witmer moved into a tie for third with five this year. Gilham sits by himself in sixth with three.

Wins

Shunk was a perfect 7-0 this week. He won five matches on his way to the crown in Grove City. The big week allowed the Ram wrestler to jump up to a tie for eighth with 23 wins on the season.

Shunk is also the team leader for Penns Valley but is only one ahead of Clayton Royer — who has 22 wins this year and is tied for 10th with Gilham and St. Joseph’s Keegan Rothrock.

The wins leader still remains the same with Witmer. He went 4-0 and is one of three county wrestlers to have 30-plus victories. Witmer’s 32 wins leads teammates Malachi DuVall and Ammon Ohl, who are tied, by just two wins. The Wolves hold the top-5 spots with Dowling and Ethan Kauffman tied with 26 wins. (Dowling didn’t wrestle this week, and Kauffman added just one win.)

BEA has a quartet of wrestlers in the top 10. Seth Koleno and Garrett Rigg are tied for sixth with 25 wins a piece, Gage McClenahan is tied for eighth with 23 wins.

Major decisions

There is a logjam at the top with four wrestlers tied with six major decision victories this year. Bellefonte’s Ethan Richner and State College’s Owen Woolcott, who were co-leaders last week, were unable to add any major decisions this week. However, the Wolves’ DuVall was able to add three and teammate Witmer, who had five, added one to match Richer and Woolcott at the top.

DuVall reached the semifinals of the Ultimate Warrior, outscoring his opponents 18-1 and having nine points in each match. After dropping into the consolation bracket, DuVall earned an 8-0 win over Mifflin County’s Logan Wise to reach the consolation finals. Witmer’s major decision was 10-0 to capture the 120-pound title at the Ultimate Warrior.

Pins and fastest fall

For the second straight week, there were no new times added to the fastest fall list.

Ohl again continued to add to his pin total. He had three more this week en route to reaching the 106-pound finals, which he lost by fall. Ohl now has 27 pins this year.

Koleno had four pins — three alone in his tournament run — to get to 17 on the year. He pinned his way to the semifinals and wrestled a mere 4:10. In the finals, he met Hollidaysburg’s Nathan Swartz and pinned Swartz for the second time this season. Koleno’s teammate Gilham tacked on three falls and jumped from ninth to third on the list with 14. Some new faces to the list included BEA’s Rigg and Lucas Holderman and Philipsburg-Osceola’s Jordan Smith. They all now have 12 falls on the year and are tied for eighth.

This story was originally published January 28, 2018 at 4:12 PM with the headline "Tracking the area’s high school wrestling stat leaders through Jan. 28."