County crowns 2 champions at Ultimate Warrior wrestling tourney
Centre County was able to push over half of its contingent of semifinalists into the finals of the Ultimate Warrior Tournament on Saturday.
Of the five to advance to the title match, two were crowned champions — St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy’s Amonn Ohl and Caleb Dowling. The other finalists included Philipsburg-Osceola’s Chase Chapman and the Wolves’ Tyler Stoltzfus and Kolby Franklin.
In all, the county had 15 wrestlers place. The other placewinners were the Mounties’ Nick Bryan (106 pounds), Nick Coudriet (113), and Hunter Weitoish (152); Bald Eagle Area’s Cooper Gilham (113), Garrett Giedroc (120), Dylan Bisel (182) and David Close (195); and St. Joseph’s Zack Witmer (132), Keegan Rothrock (152) and Zach Rosenberger (170).
The Wolves finished third in the team race out of 32 teams. Their 160 points were behind Southern Columbia’s 225.5 and Mifflin County’s 179.
“I don’t really worry about that,” said St. Joseph’s coach Pat Flynn, when asked about his team’s finish with a partial lineup. “We work with what we got. We got eight guys. They come to battle every day at practice. I’m proud of them.”
The Eagles finished eighth with 98 team points, and the Mounties ended in 10th with 87 points.
Ohl was first to take the mat for the county in the finals at 120 pounds. He squared off against Mifflin County’s Christian Fisher, who had a good ride going in the second period. Fisher got a little lazy with his ride, and Ohl took advantage. With their legs entangled, Ohl gained control and rolled Fisher over his head for the pin with one second remaining in the second period.
Dowling was paired up with Southern Columbia’s Gavin Garcia at 145 pounds. Dowling led 2-1 to start the third period and chose neutral to start.
Garcia earned a takedown with 1:23 remaining. Dowling escaped with 35 seconds left, and the pair headed for extra periods of wrestling. No one scored in sudden victory, the duo traded escapes in 30-second ride-out periods, but Dowling got the needed escape in the third 30-second ride-out for a 5-4 win.
“Caleb showed a lot of heart,” Flynn said of his champs. “Amonn was in some crazy, funky positions. He ended up doing what he does best, pinning people.”
Chapman, Stoltzfus and Franklin didn’t fare as well as Ohl and Dowling.
Chapman ran into a buzzsaw of Latrobe’s Gabe Willochell in the 132-pound finals.
Willochell led 3-0 after one period and was up 8-1 after two periods. In the third, Willochell collected a reversal that he then turned into near-fall points. One more Willochell takedown made the final score 16-2 against Chapman.
“This day was a confidence booster for our team,” P-O coach Brad Pataky said. “We finished well for not having a full lineup. I think this gives them an understanding of where they are at.”
Stoltzfus took on a familiar foe in Mifflin County’s Trey Kibe. It was testy from the get-go with Kibe collecting a takedown 21 seconds into the match.
Kibe cranked on Stoltzfus’ head and worked him into a pinning combination. Kibe earned the fall in 1:13.
Franklin squared off with Southern Columbia’s Gaige Garcia in the most anticipated match of the night. The pair went through a scoreless first period.
Garcia collected three points in the second period of an escape and counter takedown. Those points were enough to counter Franklin’s two escapes in a 3-2 win.
Franklin’s teammates in Witmer, Gilham, Weitoish and Bisel all wrestled for third. The third-place matches weren’t very friendly for the county’s athletes, as all of them lost.
Gilham was shut out in his match against Shippensburg’s Jeffrey Russell, who was the top seed. Russell used his length for a 10-0 win.
Witmer trailed 3-2 late in his match against Lake Lehman’s Bob Long. He tried for several tilts but Long was able to keep himself from being counted for near-fall points. Witmer fell by that same 3-2 score.
Weitoish was unable to escape in the third period against Johnsonburg’s Cole Casilio. Casilio’s escape in the second period was the winning point in a 1-0 match.
Bisel trailed 2-0 going to the second period against Blairsville’s Garrett Henigin. Henigin built his lead to 6-0 after two periods. In the third, Bisel was able to get a takedown, but it wasn’t enough in an 8-3 loss.
Bryan, Giedroc, Rothrock, Rosenberger and Close looked to finish fifth. The fifth-place bouts were a lot better as four of the five were able to close their days out with victories.
Even though his squad only had four place-winners, Eagles coach Ron Guenot was still positive and able to prepare for BEA’s first District 6 2A tournament in a couple of weeks.
“Overall, I thought we had a pretty good tournament,” Guenot said. “We like to always have a couple more place-winners. We saw some good things and some things we have to work on. It’s good to see some of the double-A schools we are going to compete against at districts, because we wrestle a mostly triple-A schedule.”
Coudriet opened his day with a pin and closed it with a pin to finish seventh. He took care of Johnstown’s Jacob Scaletta in 2:45. After being pinned by Tyrone’s Hunter Walker, Coudriet stuck Clearfield’s Nolan Barr in a time of 1:11 in the seventh-place match.
Earlier in the day, BEA’s Drake Holderman and Richard Taylor; and P-O’s Tristan Beauseigneur came up a round shy of wrestling for a podium spot.
