Tons of movement this week on Centre County’s high school wrestling leaderboards

The postseason got underway Friday for the county’s Class 2A teams in Bald Eagle Area, Penns Valley, Philipsburg-Osceola and St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy — as the four teams combined to send 22 athletes to the Southwest Regional tournament.

The Class 3A teams, State College and Bellefonte, also had one last dual before their postseasons begin this coming Saturday in Altoona.

With all the action, there were plenty of moves this week on the leaderboards. Take a look:

Wins

Five wrestlers reached their 30th wins of the season this week. But the quintet is still chasing a trio of St. Joseph’s wrestlers in Kolby Franklin (37), Caleb Dowling (35) and Tyler Stoltzfus (35) as the top leaders.

Penns Valley’s Baylor Shunk was the first to collect his 30th win this week. He topped Forest Hills’ Michael Noon with a fall in 2:19 of the second round of the District 6 championships.

Shunk’s teammate Abraham Allebach was next in line with a 4-0 win over West Branch’s Ethan Yingling in the 160-pound quarterfinals.

The Rams’ Clayton Royer and the Wolves’ Keegan Rothrock accomplished the feat in the semifinals of their respective weight classes. Royer topped Philipsburg-Osceola’s Chase Chapman 3-0 at 132 pounds. And Rothrock used a 4-2 defeat of Moshannon Valley’s Jon Dale at 152 pounds.

Amonn Ohl was the final wrestler to collect his 30th win. It came in a 7-2 defeat of Shunk in the 120-pound finals.

There are seven more wrestlers that should have a pretty good shot of getting win No. 30 this week. Penns Valley’s Dillon Covalt is the closest with 29.

Chapman and St. Joseph’s Zach Rosenberger were each able to get their 20th victory of the season this week. Chapman has 23 so far and Rosenberger is at 20 exactly.

The Rams’ Cole Felker and the Mounties’ Tyler Anderson each got into double digits in wins.

Falls

Heading into districts, Allebach held a one-pin lead on last season’s pin leader in Ohl, who was able to get three falls on the way to the 120-pound title match. Allebach got only two in his third-place finish at 160 pounds.

That means the pair are tied for the county lead with 25 on the year.

Ohl’s first two falls took just 77 combined seconds to complete in the second round and quarterfinals. Allebach opened his tournament with a fall, and his second put him into the third-place match.

State College’s Cole Urbas made sure he stayed within striking distance of the leaders by adding his 21st pin of the year. He stuck Hollidaysburg’s Gus Dellinger in the Little Lions’ dual on Monday in 2 minutes, 38 seconds.

Covalt and Stoltzfus are each one pin shy of 20 on the year. Covalt had a fall in his tournament opener and used another to reach the semifinals at 220 pounds. Stoltzfus used back-to-back falls to claim the 160-pound crown, but he had three in the tournament.

Penns Valley’s Malachi DuVall made a leap up the falls leaderboard by adding three this week to get to 17. All of his falls led the way to a finals berth at 138 pounds. DuVall even stuck the No. 1 seed in the semifinals.

P-O’s Nick Coudriet also appeared on the leaderboard for the first time this year. He had three falls — all by cradle — on way to a seventh-place finish at 113 pounds. Coudriet has 16 pins on the year.

Dowling, BEA’s Drew Koleno and the Mounties’ Austin Foster and Nick Bryan all picked up their 10th pins of the season.

Technical falls

Shunk no longer shares the lead with Dowling. Shunk had two such victories in the quarterfinals and semifinals to get to 11 on the year.

The Rams’ wrestler outscored his two opponents 38-6. SJCA’s wrestler came up one point shy of getting No. 10, which upset him a little bit.

Dowling’s teammate Zack Witmer has been a man on a mission with technical falls. The sophomore used three tech falls to reach the 132-pound finals. He now has nine this season and is tied with Dowling for second.

Witmer outscored his opponents 53-4, while only having six points scored on him the whole tournament.

Rothrock’s 16-1 quarterfinals win over Mount Union’s Caleb Morgan gave him four technical falls this season. He is tied with Bellefonte’s Lane Aikey for sixth.

Royer and Stoltzfus each earned their third technical falls to break away from a pack of wrestlers that have two. Royer had a 17-1 win, and Stoltzfus didn’t give up a point while scoring 16.

The Mounties’ Tristan Beauseigneur had a 15-0 win over Moshannon Valley’s Nikolas Smeal in 145-pound first round for his first technical fall victory.

Major decisions and fastest falls

Franklin was able to break up a tie with Dowling at the top of the major decision list. Franklin used back-to-back major decisions to earn the 195-pound crown.

He outscored his opponents in Penns Valley’s Carter Felker and the Eagles’ David Close 27-11. The freshman has eight major decision wins.

Remember the win that disappointed Dowling? Yeah, it was still Dowling’s seventh major decision, a 15-1 win over Central’s Logan Marko in the 145-pound semifinals.

BEA’s Garret Giedroc earned his fifth major decision for third-most in the county. Giedroc topped Foster 15-5 in their 120-pound second round match.

Close, Chapman and Chapman’s teammates Gabe Dunkelberger and Hunter Weitoish all broke out of a logjam of wrestlers with their third major decisions. Close topped the trio’s teammate in Dylan Yastro 12-1 in the 195-pound quarterfinals.

Dunkelberger got his win first with a 17-3 defeat of Southern Huntingdon’s Josh Fleck in the 126-pound second round. Weitoish was next with an 11-3 win over Ligonier Valley’s Clayton Matson in the 152-pound quarterfinals. Chapman used a 10-1 win over Westmont Hilltop’s Roy Dunn to make the 132-pound third-place match.

Franklin and Stoltzfus added new times to the fastest fall leaderboard this week. Stoltzfus’ fall in 16 seconds is the gatekeeper on the board. His fall came in the second round over Mount Union’s Connor Sieber.

Franklin barely broke a sweat in his second-round match. He stuck Richland’s Kaileb Ghezzy in 11 seconds. It is the fifth-fastest time of the season.

Follow Nate Cobler on Twitter all season long for high school wrestling updates and more

Wins

Falls

Fastest Falls

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

This story was originally published February 17, 2019 at 2:23 PM.