How St. Joseph’s — which lacks wrestling facilities — is starting to make national waves
St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy’s Caleb Dowling cautioned what he said next was going to sound weird.
But the nationally ranked wrestler emphasized how serious his six-man program takes the sport. Player-run practices in the offseason include uphill suicide sprints. The team shows up at 6:30 a.m. some days to drill. Practice overtime matches are treated like actual overtime, and Dowling returned home more than once with a black eye after getting stomped in the face during those extra periods on the mat.
“It’s pretty nice,” he said with a laugh, referring to those incidental kicks. “It doesn’t sound nice. But it’s pretty nice.”
The small local school, with an enrollment of 141, takes the sport of wrestling seriously — even if the team is forced to practice at different spots around town. The program has existed for just five seasons, so there is no wrestling room. Instead, student-athletes lift at nearby Victory Sports and practice on the mat at Ken Chertow’s training center, about 3 miles down the road.
Despite those obstacles, the young program is starting to make a name for itself. St. Joseph’s often wrestles in tournaments — a team of six wrestlers won’t get very far in duals — and it’s caught the attention of college scouts and national experts. Two of SJCA’s wrestlers, Dowling and Tyler Stoltzfus, are nationally ranked by InterMat. And half of the school’s six wrestlers are already committed to Division I universities: Dowling (West Virginia), Stoltzfus (Lock Haven) and Keegan Rothrock (Brown).
Dowling is listed as the nation’s No. 13 wrestler at 152 pounds; Stoltzfus is No. 3 at 170 pounds. SJCA is one of just eight programs in a state known for its rich wrestling tradition to have multiple nationally ranked student-athletes.
“The biggest thing for our room is we all have common goals,” Rothrock said. “Everyone in this room wants to be a state champ. No one in here wants to qualify for states. They want to win.”
In separate interviews, Dowling said for the better part of two years, he’s thought about winning states every single day. Rothrock, who hasn’t missed watching or competing in a state tournament since second grade, swore he’s thought about winning every day this year. And Stoltzfus simply settled on thinking about it “a lot; just a lot.”
“To be this good,” head coach Pat Flynn added, “they’ve all got something special about them.”
On a recent Thursday afternoon, the team again gathered at Chertow’s training center, where Olympic flags adorn the white walls and a powered-off TV hangs in the corner. The floor rumbled once practice heated up, with wrestlers pairing off and stopping only when Flynn’s wristwatch beeped to signal the end of the period. With such a low enrollment — one of the smallest in the country with multiple nationally ranked wrestlers, according to Department of Education statistics — everyone wrestles everyone.
For the heaviest wrestler in Stoltzfus at 170 pounds, that means he trades strength for speed in his opponents. For others, it’s a versatile mix. Looking to square off against a balanced opponent? Take on Dowling, who has few weaknesses. Want to improve on bottom or face brute strength? Go against Stoltzfus, who’s great with his legs. Want a lesson in all of the above? The coach, Flynn, is ready to grapple, too.
The no-frills approach has helped SJCA slide into the national picture. It started with Flynn, who’s been around youth wrestling for years and knew two of his wrestlers since they were 5. He started the program, one solid wrestler followed him in the beginning, and others began to follow in the footsteps of that wrestler. Success begat success; SJCA started to become an option for other wrestlers around the area.
Dowling, who lives an hour away in Juniata County, chose to attend SJCA because his best friend since the age of 5, Zack Witmer, lived in Bellefonte. Both wanted to wrestle together — and Dowling wanted better academics — so now they’re both able to do that at St. Joseph’s. Stoltzfus also lives about an hour away.
But they’ll all still arrive on time for 6:30 a.m. Tuesday practices. They’ll mostly all compete year-round. And, while they’ll still mess around during a post-match meal at Quaker Steak or on the road during five-hour car trips, they’re all business-like on the mat and at practice — even when Flynn isn’t there, which doesn’t happen often.
Before the season, when Flynn couldn’t make it one day, he let his seniors decide what to do. Junior Amonn Ohl, who’s recorded three falls in less than 15 seconds this season, and newcomer Mike Lavallee didn’t hesitate in following their more-experienced teammates.
Rather than commit to a short jog around the school, they ran suicide sprints and one wrestler — to the horror of his teammates — gulped down an entire bottle of blue Gatorade. His stomach emptied about halfway through the player-run workout.
“We went until we had done enough,” Dowling recalled, “and then we said, OK, let’s get Amonn’s car and push it around the block. So one of us sat in the car, and the others pushed it around school.”
With SJCA’s talent and work ethic, it has a chance to make waves in the future, too. Flynn said the school is in talks about starting a junior high program and possibly an elementary program. But, for now, the program is focused on this season and making county history.
Centre County hasn’t boasted a state wrestling champ in a decade, when Bellefonte’s Mitchell Port won the state title at 125 pounds. (Flynn just so happened to be the assistant coach at the time.) Now, St. Joseph’s has three wrestlers who stand a legitimate shot at returning home with the gold.
Small or not, wresting facilities or not, St. Joseph’s couldn’t feel more prepared.
“The common denominator for all of us is we want to be the best,” Rothrock said. “And having that ‘state champ’ next to your name proves it.”
Added Flynn: “This didn’t just happen overnight. ... Maybe we’ll have three state champs, I don’t know. Hopefully, we can can get it done.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 5:41 PM.
