Here are Centre County’s high school wrestling leaders through Feb. 23

Every one of Centre County’s wrestling programs are into postseason competition now.

This means there are plenty of opportunities available for athletes to make some moves on the weekly leaderboards.

There are 15 Class 2A wrestlers from Bald Eagle Area, Penns Valley, Philipsburg-Osceola and St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy who already have their spots earned to Hershey. Bellefonte and State College combined to send 18 to the PIAA Northwest Regional, which will occur this upcoming weekend in Altoona.

The Red Raiders claimed four District 6 champions as the Little Lions had just one, but six finalists.

Here’s a look at where movements were made after this week’s wrestling on the leaderboards:

Wins

What more can be said about St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy’s Caleb Dowling?

All he does is win and he continued that this week. Dowling became the first county wrestler to get to 40 wins on the season. He collected four en route to winning his third PIAA Southwest Regional title in Indiana.

The senior has been known for racking up bonus-point victories, but in the finals he only managed a 2-1 victory, granted it was against Burrell’s AJ Corrado, who is considered one of the best in the state at 152 pounds. It was Dowling’s 40th victory on the season.

The Wolves’ Tyler Stoltzfus remained second in the county with 38 victories as he earned four en route to the 170-pound PIAA Southwest Regional crown.

Bald Eagle Area’s Gage McClenahan got to 35 victories on the season after going 4-for-4 and winning the 145-pound PIAA SW Regional crown. He had back-to-back one-point victories to close out his tournament run. He even managed to get some revenge by beating Forest Hills’ Erik Gibson, who beat McClenahan a week ago for the District 6 title.

Things tend to get a little bundled up behind McClenahan. There are four wrestlers in Bald Eagle Area’s Coen Bainey and Cooper Gilham and Penns Valley’s Clayton Royer and Malachi DuVall each up to 34 wins this season.

Royer and DuVall earned four a piece on way to finishing third in their weight classes. Bainey and Gilham each only had three wins this week, but Bainey had the highest finish between the two with a second-place finish at 106 pounds. Gilham finished fourth at 120 pounds.

Bainey’s 34 wins now sit five behind the freshman wins mark for the Eagles that was set by Quentin Wright.

The top 10 is rounded out with a trio of wrestlers who have 33 wins on the season. They include District 6 126-pound champion in Jude Swisher, PIAA SW Regional 195-pound champion in Philipsburg-Osceola’s Parker Moore and St. Joseph’s Keegan Rothrock, who came up just short of winning the 160-pound PIAA SW Regional title.

McClenahan and Bellefonte’s Alex Coppolo hit the century mark for career victories this week.

McClenahan’s 100th win came in the first round of the PIAA SW Regional tournament. He pinned Hopewell’s Alex Obeldobel in 2:09.

Coppolo’s 100th win sent him to the 132-pound consolation finals of the District 6 Class 3A Championships. He pinned Hollidaysburg’s Garidan Bridenbaugh in 4:39.

Centre County’s teams had nine wrestlers earn their 30th win of the season this week:

Bald Eagle Area: David Close’s (31 wins) 30th win couldn’t have come at a better time. He pinned Quaker Valley’s Donovan Cutchember in the 220-pound consolation quarterfinals, which locked up Close’s trip to Hershey.

Bellefonte: The Red Raiders had three wrestlers earn their 30th victory this week. Coppolo (32) was the first with a pin of Juniata’s Tye Jabs in the first round. Aidan O’Shea was next with a 9-3 win over Hollidaysburg’s Colin Smilank in the 113-pound semifinals. Ethan Rossman was last and it was a technical fall in the 182-pound finals.

Philipsburg-Osceola: The Mounties had Moore and Hunter Weitoish (31) collect No. 30. Moore’s came in the first round with a pin of Burgettstown’s Garret Sulca in 1:42. Weitoish has a 2-0 win over McGuffey’s Ethan Barr to reach the 160-pound consolation finals.

St. Joseph’s: Zack Witmer (32) joined the 30-plus win club this week for the Wolves. His technical fall in the first round over Burrell’s Logan Bechtold was No. 30.

State College: The Little Lions had a pair of wrestlers pick up win No. 30. Lance Urbas (30) and Owen Woolcott (30) earned their win in the same round. Woolcott topped Coppolo 4-3 in the 132-pound semifinals. Urbas beat Central Mountain’s Caleb Porter 9-2 in the 170-pound semifinals.

Five area wrestlers were able to earn win No. 20 this week:

Penns Valley: Andrew Sharer (20) was able to get to 20 wins in just over a month. His 20th was a 7-5 win over Huntingdon’s Myles Baney, who he beat for the District 6 title, in the 182-pound consolation semifinals.

Philipsburg-Osceola: Austin Foster (20) saw his season come to an end this week. However, he was able to beat Beth-Center’s Trevor Pettit 5-3 in the 145-pound consolation first round.

State College: The Little Lions had Harrison Schoen (20), Eric Weaver (22) and Carter Weaverling (20) get to 20 wins on the season. Weaver was first with a pin of Hollidaysburg’s Brian Praul in the first round at 120-pounds. Schoen was next with a 3-2 win over Central Mountain’s Cyrus McCarl in the 285-pound semifinals. Weaverling topped Altoona’s Damion Finnegan in the 126-pound consolation finals 5-3.

Pins

The top three remained the same in this category with DuVall, McClenahan and Stoltzfus. However, the order changed.

DuVall is still the leader, but Stoltzfus leaped over McClenahan for second. DuVall and Stoltzfus each collected three pins this week, but DuVall’s 27 leads the county.

Stoltzfus is up to 23 on the season. McClenahan only added two this week, but is up to 22 on the year.

Swisher and teammate Ethan Richner round out the top five and are the only other county wrestlers to have over 20 pins this season.

Swisher (21 pins) leads the Red Raiders, but his 20th came in the first round of the District 6 Championships over Hollidaysburg’s Dan Turiano. Richner (20) had his 20th fall in the 160-pound semifinals of the District 6 Championships in 53 seconds over Central Mountain’s Kaden Falls.

Bainey collected three pins on his way to the PIAA SW Regional finals. He sits one shy of 20.

Close’s previously mentioned fall was his 17th of the year, which is good for eighth most in the county. He is tied with Coppolo, who had one fall this week.

Rounding out the top 10 is O’Shea and Rothrock, who have 16 pins this season. They each had one fall this week.

Technical Falls

There is no longer a tied at the top of this list.

Dowling was able to snatch the lead away from Royer. Yes, each added technical falls this week, but Dowling had one more than Royer to get to 13 on the year.

The Wolves wrestler started his tournament with a technical fall. He used another to reach the finals. Dowling outscored his opponents 34-2.

Royer’s 15-0 technical fall over Northern Bedford’s Ian Sherlock sent him to the consolation finals.

Witmer added another technical fall this week, which give him nine on the season. He is third in the county and has a nice four-technical fall cushion over Richner, Rossman and Woolcott.

Witmer had a 15-0 victory over Burrell’s Logan Brechtold in his tournament opener. Richner and Rossman each had a technical fall in the finals of their respective weight classes. They combined to outscore their opponents 35-5. Woolcott opened his District 6 tournament with a 15-0 win over Central Mountain’s Tristan Probst.

Schoen, who isn’t on the leaderboard, still earned his first technical fall of the year, which is unique for a heavyweight high school wrestler. The Little Lions’ wrestler opened the District 6 tournament with a 15-0 shut out of Bellefonte’s Tyler Putnam.

Fastest Falls & Major Decisions

There were no new times added this week on the fastest falls list.

There were no changes in the top five of the major decision list, but there was still some movement there.

Close and Royer were each able to earn their third major decision of the season. This week they jumped up into a tie for sixth in the county with four other wrestlers.

Close had a 9-1 victory over Jefferson Morgan’s Jonathan Wolfe to make the consolation finals. Royer opened his PIAA SW Regional tournament with a 16-3 rout of Southmoreland’s Nick Yeskey.

Wins

Falls

Fastest Fall

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 3:22 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.