Here are Centre County’s high school wrestling leaders through Jan. 26

It wasn’t too busy of a week, but all of Centre County’s wrestling teams had at least one dual.

Bellefonte had a pair and went 1-1. Bald Eagle Area, Philipsburg-Osceola and St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy each competed in the Ultimate Warrior Tournament at West Branch High School on Friday and Saturday.

Penns Valley headed to the Fred Bell Tournament in Grove City like it has for the past couple of years on Friday and Saturday. State College’s lone action of the week was a dual with Carlisle.

The Eagles and Mounties will hit the mat on Tuesday for the District 6 Class 2A dual team championships to make the semifinals. BEA hosts Tyrone and Westmont Hilltop. P-O will travel to Forest Hills to face of against Ligonier Valley and maybe Forest Hills.

The Little Lions and Red Raiders are already in the District 6 Class 3A semifinals, which are slated for Saturday at Tyrone High School.

Let’s take a look at this week’s movement on the leaderboards.

Wins

There is a lone wrestler at the top this week in the Wolves’ Caleb Dowling. The senior has 31 on the season and was able to earn his 150th of his career this week.

The four wins this week earned Dowling the 152-pound title at the Ultimate Warrior. His 30th win was a 9-0 major decision in the semifinals over Greater Latrobe’s Jack Pletcher, younger brother of Ohio State’s Luke Pletcher.

Dowling’s teammate Tyler Stoltzfus is one behind with 30. Stoltzfus also suffered his first loss of the season in the 170-pound finals of the Ultimate Warrior to Mifflin County’s Trey Kibe. It was a matchup of the No. 1 (Stoltzfus) and No. 2 (Kibe) wrestlers in the country according to InterMat at the weight class.

Stoltzfus’ 30th win was a 5:27 fall of Richland’s Jacob Sabol in the semifinals.

Bald Eagle Area’s Gage McClenahan collected five wins this week to leap up the leaderboard for a tie for third with 26 on the season. Four of those wins helped the senior earn the 145-pound title at the Ultimate Warrior.

McClenahan is tied with a trio of Bellefonte wrestlers in Alex Coppolo, Ethan Richner and Jude Swisher. They each had a perfect 2-0 mark this week in the Red Raiders’ duals.

There are four wrestlers tied at 25 to round out the top 10. They include the Eagles’ Coen Bainey, Bellefonte’s Ethan Rossman, St. Joseph’s Keegan Rothrock and State College’s Hayden Cunningham. Rothrock tallied the most wins of them all with four en route to the 160-pound title at the Ultimate Warrior.

Rothrock’s teammate Zack Witmer picked up his 100th career win this week. It was a 10-0 major decision over Shippensburg’s Dominic Frontino in the 138-pound finals of the Ultimate Warrior. Witmer has 24 victories so far this season.

The county now has 21 wrestlers with over 20 wins this season. Here’s who joined the list this week:

Bald Eagle Area: David Close (20 wins) earned his with a 2-0 win over Greater Latrobe’s Tyler Ross in the 220-pound consolation semifinals on way to a fourth place finish.

Penns Valley: Malachi DuVall (24) and Clayton Royer (24) each earned win No. 20 this week and they came in the Rams’ dual against Huntingdon on Tuesday. DuVall pinned the Bearcats’ Adrian Lender in 37 seconds. Royer picked up a 16-1 technical fall over Morgan McDivitt in 4:13.

Philipsburg-Osceola: Parker Moore (21) and Hunter Weitoish (21) lead the Mounties with victories. The sophomore in Moore earned No. 20 with a 4-2 win over Towanda’s Clay Watkins on way to a third-place finish at 195 pounds at the Ultimate Warrior. Weitoish edged Hollidaysburg’s Campbell Walls 3-2 to reach the consolations finals and finished third at 160 pounds.

Falls

DuVall was able to reclaim the throne in this category after relinquishing it two weeks ago. He is the first and only county wrestler to have 20 pins so far.

The Rams’ wrestler added four falls this week. Three alone helped send him to the 152-pound semifinals at the Fred Bell Tournament. His 20th was sticking Avonworth’s Joey Boughton in 1:06 in the quarterfinals.

Richner, who was the leader the past two weeks, had just two this week in the limited work. He is one behind DuVall with 19.

McClenahan had three of his five wins this week come by way of fall. He pinned Juniata’s Waylon Ehrenzeller on Tuesday and used two to reach the semifinals at the Ultimate Warrior. McClenahan’s 17 pins sits him alone in third.

Stoltzfus and Swisher round out the top five with 16 and 15 pins, respectively. Stoltzfus used a trio of falls to reach the finals. Swisher received a forfeit and a pin this week for his wins. The pin came over Central Mountain’s Tristan Probst in 5:07 on Friday.

Bellefonte’s Aidan O’Shea, Rothrock and Cunningham each added a pin this week to tie for sixth with 14. Coppolo joined the list this week with his 13th fall of the season.

Here’s who earned their 10th fall of the season this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Close (10 falls) took care of Tyrone’s Jason Barr in 50 seconds in the second round of the Ultimate Warrior.

Bellefonte: Stephen Ivicic (10) topped Central’s Michael Fowkes in 27 seconds in the Red Raiders’ dual on Wednesday.

Philipsburg-Osceola: Nick Coudriet (11) and Weitoish (10) picked up No. 10 this week. Coudriet’s came in the 113-pound consolation fourth round over Altoona’s Jordan Carlucci in 30 seconds. Weitoish stuck Ridgway’s Hunter Wall in 3:17 to open the Ultimate Warrior.

Technical Falls

Royer and Dowling are tied at the top again with 10. The two have tied several times and alternated the lead other times. They are the only county wrestlers to have double-digit tech falls.

This week Royer had three to Dowling’s one. After beating McDivitt earlier in the week, Royer had two in the Fred Bell Tournament. He outscored his opponents 31-0 and his 10th coming with a 16-0 defeat of Slippery Rock’s Mason Borland in the quarterfinals.

Dowling had 17-1 win over Johnsonburg’s Aiden Zimmerman in the quarterfinals at the Ultimate Warrior for No. 10.

Witmer used two technical falls to begin his title run. He now has seven on the season and is third by himself. He outscored his opponents 34-2.

McClenahan’s 17-2 over Johnsonburg’s Kaden Dennis sent him to the finals, but was also his second of the season to join the board this week.

Fastest Fall & Major Decisions

Only two new fastest fall times were added this week. None replaced the leader in Amonn Ohl, who’s five-second pin still leads the county.

Instead, McClenahan tied one of Ohl’s other fastest times, which is 11 seconds. McClenahan stuck Hollidaysburg’s Nicholas Burkey in second round of the Ultimate Warrior.

Dowling, who had four fast fall times last week, had two removed but added another with a 12-seconds pin of Brockway’s Linkin Nichols.

P-O’s Chase Chapman still leads the county with five major decisions, but he has three people chasing him.

Teammate Gabe Dunkelberger and Coppolo each added a major decision this week to get to four and tie State College’s Lance Urbas. Dunkelberger had two in the Ultimate Warrior 132-pound consolation rounds. He outscored his opponents 25-4.

Coppolo topped Central Mountain’s Hayden Walizer on Friday 11-2.

Bainey also had two major decisions this week to climb into a tie for fifth with three on the year. He topped Juniata’s Casey Smith 12-2 on Tuesday in a dual, and used a 14-3 win over Johnsonburg’s Wyatt Shaffer to reach the 106-pound finals.

Wins

Falls

Fastest Fall

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 4:13 PM.

Nate Cobler

Centre Daily Times

814-231-4609

Nate Cobler is a part-time reporter covering all things wrestling, either Penn State or Centre County’s high schools, for the Centre Daily Times. He’ll also cover other sports too. When he isn’t writing about sports, he is working for a local mortgage broker, Providence Mortgage Group.