How Centre County crowned 4 champs and 15 medalists at Ultimate Warrior wrestling tourney

The Centre County contingent advanced six wrestlers into the finals and came away with four champions and 15 medal winners at the Ultimate Warrior Tournament Saturday at West Branch High School.

Winning titles were Zack Witmer (138), Caleb Dowling (152) and Keegan Rothrock of St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy and Bald Eagle Area’s Gage McClenahan (145).

Tyler Stoltzfus (170) of the Wolves, along with Coen Bainey (106) of the Eagles came in second place.

Other medal winners from Centre County include BEA’s Jeffre Pifer (fifth at 113), Cooper Gilham (fifth at 120) and David Close (fourth at 220), and Philipsburg-Osceola’s Nick Coudriet (seventh at 113), Chase Chapman (sixth at 138), Aaron Foster (seventh at 145), Hunter Weitoish (third at 160), Parker Moore (third at 195) and Tyler Anderson (eighth at 220).

BEA finished sixth in the team race with 117 points — behind Southern Columbia (210.5), Mifflin County (189.5), Johnsonburg (131), Greater Latrobe (130.5) and Wilson Area (123.5)

“Overall, we had a decent weekend. Five placewinners is not bad, but we want to get better. I thought we could have had a few more,” BEA coach Ron Guenot said. “We didn’t get that. To come here and finish sixth out of 34 teams is pretty good. This is definitely a good preparation for the postseason. You see a lot of state-ranked kids here at this tournament. If you place here, you know you did something. It shows you where you’re at and what you need to work on.”

St. Joseph’s placed seventh in the team race with 113.5 points, going 3-for-4 in the finals. The Wolves could have had a possible fifth finalist but fourth-seeded Amonn Ohl at 132 pounds injured his ankle on Friday and defaulted out.

“We were No. 1 seeds, so we are wrestling to our seed and that’s good. Getting three champions is always nice. The guys are working hard and ready to get after it,” St. Joseph’s coach Pat Flynn said. “We wrestle a tough schedule. The Ironman is the best in the country. We go to Powerade, another tough tournament, so this is a great tournament to see where were at and get ready for districts. Amonn got hurt, but his X-rays came back negative, so that’s good. He has time to heal up. We get to see a lot of District 6 teams and that’s what we want this close to the postseason.”

P-O made the top 10 with 90 points to finish in 10th with six medalists.

“These two days are some of the toughest wrestling we face. This tournament is an extremely competitive environment and good preparation for the postseason,” P-O coach Brad Pataky said. “Many of the teams we are wrestling we won’t see until the state tournament and this helps us in terms of growing. We wrestled a pretty good tournament. The guys wrestled hard. Our placewinners are fighters and they showed that this weekend. They are going to make some noise in the postseason.”

Witmer started the Centre County winners with a 10-0 major decision over Shippensburg’s Dom Fronteno. Not only did the junior win the Ultimate Warrior crown, he captured his 100th career win in the finals.

“It’s pretty special. It’s always one of those great moments in a wrestlers career, 100 wins. It’s nice to get it as a junior,” Witmer said. “This is the last tournament before districts, so it’s nice to end on a good note in the finals. I felt good coming into the match. I felt I controlled the match pretty handily, wrestling a full six minutes. I’d like to score more points. I wanted the tech fall but I’m happy with my tournament.”

Top-ranked Gage McClenahan had a tougher-than-expected time with Richland’s Cooper Warshal, making an escape and takedown in the second period stand up in a 3-0 victory, his second Warrior title.

“It’s getting to that point in the year where everyone is scouting you. I know kids are going to start knowing what I’m doing, so I’m trying to change things up,” McClenahan said. “I was happy with my tournament. I was moving around, scoring a lot of points. I feel really good. I’m happy with my conditioning and we still have another two weeks of tough practices to get ready for the postseason.”

Dowling gave the Wolves champion No. 2 with a hard-fought 7-5 win over Daniel Yetsick, of Ambridge. The St. Joe’s senior won his second crown with two takedowns and an escape in the first period for the 5-3 lead. A reversal in the second and an escape in the third sealed the deal for Dowling, giving him win No. 150 for his career.

“He had a weird feel to him a little bit. He’s a good wrestler, but I go into every match with the goal of dominating my opponent and sometimes that doesn’t happen,” Dowling said. “I always like to win on my feet, which I did. I should have won the match by more, and I had a goal of winning by more, but a win is a win in the end. You’re never going to wrestle a perfect match, but you can take things and learn from stuff like that. I had a good tournament overall.”

Rothrock won his championship with solid mat wrestling from the top and the bottom, picking up the 5-0 shutout of Clearfield’s Mark McGonigal. Rothrock, headed to Brown University, had a takedown in the first for the 2-0 advantage. McGonigal chose bottom and couldn’t escape. A reversal and stall point for Rothrock in the third set the final score.

“I had a good tournament but I would have liked to score more points. I did a lot of riding but not enough scoring, especially in that finals match,” Rothrock said. “It’s tough to score sometimes when a kid is doing nothing. I was happy. I beat some good kids this weekend. I feel good. I have a great practice partner in Caleb and we’re ready to go win some state titles.”

In the tournament finale, Stoltzfus met Mifflin County’s Trey Kibe for the fourth time in their careers and the second this season.

Once again, they didn’t disappoint.

Stoltzfus defeated Kibe 4-3 at Powerade back in December, but this time it was Kibe who came out on top in an exciting 2-1 victory.

After a scoreless first period, Stoltzfus chose down and escaped to make it 1-0. In the third, Kibe, well aware of his opponents prowess on the mat, chose neutral, and the strategy paid off. The Husky senior scored the winning takedown with just 12 seconds left in regulation. Stoltzfus was on his way for a reversal but ran out of time.

At 106, Bainey, the BEA freshman, ran into a buzzsaw in Nic Allison of Mifflin County. Allison, who defeated Bainey at King of the Mountain, scored two takedowns, a reversal and eight nearfall points off the cradle for the 15-2 major decision.

This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 8:00 AM.