Here’s how each of Centre County’s 4 Class 3A wrestlers earned their PIAA medals in Hershey
A day after five Centre County wrestlers saw success in the Class 2A championships, the county’s Class 3A wrestlers got off to a bit of a slower start on Saturday inside the Giant Center.
Those four wrestlers saw their dreams of becoming a state champion end relatively quickly. They went a combined 2-2 in the quarterfinals. Those two semifinalists then suffered one-point losses to get kicked into the consolation brackets.
Here is how the four wrestlers finished:
Jude Swisher, 132 pounds
School: Bellefonte
Place: 3rd
Recap: Swisher said this state tournament was different in many ways.
Sure, he said, the fact that he was already guaranteed a medal coming into Saturday helped his mindset, but it hurt at the same time. He always strives for best in everything he does.
“When you normally go to that state tournament, the first two days it’s about let’s get on the podium,” Swisher explained. “Then, you worry about where you are going to fill in on that third day. To take those two days out of equation, is less pressure, but it actually gives you more pressure. Coming into states, I put pressure on myself to get the gold. In some ways, it takes pressure off, but in other ways it puts all the pressure back on. I put it on myself because I hold myself to a high standard.”
The junior opened with pinning Bethlehem Catholic’s Matt Mayer in 3:59. He then took on Seneca Valley’s Dylan Chappell in the semifinals.
It was the first time Swisher had wrestled Chappell. He rode Chappell for the entire second period, and escaped early in the third to hold a 1-0 lead. Chappell picked up a takedown in a scramble between the two that was the deciding points in a 2-1 defeat of Swisher.
Swisher bounced back right away by putting up a dominating 7-1 win on Waynesburg Central’s Colton Stoneking, who beat him in the super regional. Swisher then shut out Coatesville’s Nathan Lucier, 5-0, to collect his second medal and the highest finish of his career, so far.
“My goal to be a state champion is something I wake up and I take with me wherever I go,” Swisher said. “To take that loss in the semis, in my hands, it stings. But, to come back and battle through, and overcome the mental barrier, was a big hurdle for me.”
Of course Swisher wanted to finish higher. He even joked that if he was just content on getting to Hershey, his opponents may have appreciated that.
Coach Mike Maney knew his wrestler was the best in the bracket, even though the final results didn’t show it. He felt this might have been the best Swisher looked all year.
“He was wrestling great the whole tournament, minus that one flurry there,” Maney said. “It was an extremely deep, tough weight class the whole way through from districts. This weekend is probably the best I’ve seen him wrestle. I know he is already thinking about ways to get better because that’s the way he is. He should be extremely proud of the way he wrestled.”
Lance Urbas, 172 pounds
School: State College
Place: 4th
Recap: Urbas has had to live in the shadow of older brother Cole all of his life.
It is just the nature of being the younger sibling in a wrestling family. He even joked how he was only ever known as Cole’s little brother.
On Saturday, the Penn commit was able to join his big brother in collecting a PIAA medal.
“It feels great. It was a lot of hard work put into this,” Urbas said. “My mindset has changed a lot and that helped a lot. It feels good that it paid off.”
The senior had some work to do en route to getting his first and only state medal. He dropped his quarterfinals match, 7-3, against Easton’s Dominic Falcone, who was the East Super Regional champion.
But, in the words of coach Ryan Cummins, Urbas didn’t “feel sorry for (himself) and roll over.”
He went to work rallying back through the consolations.
“It was difficult, but I knew that everyone that I was going to wrestle was coming off a loss, so they were beatable,” Urbas said. “I knew I could beat them if I stayed focused and got to my stuff.”
Urbas got to his “stuff” right away by topping Nazareth’s Sonny Sasso, younger brother of Ohio State stud Sammy Sasso, 3-1, to reach the consolation semifinals. He pulled off a gutsy 5-3 win over Kiski Area’s Sammy Starr after he got reversed late in the first period to take away a lead he had.
“It isn’t easy to find a kid that gets knocked down early in the tournament and come back hard like that,” Cummins said. “It’s not as common as you think it is. He came back really tough and strong. He did a tremendous job. I couldn’t be prouder.”
Urbas made the consolation finals, where he had to face Falcone again. It was a much closer match this time around.
The pair didn’t score any points in the first period, but Falcone had a 3-0 lead to start the third thanks to an escape and takedown. In the third period, Urbas gave up a penalty point for his third caution call. He managed to escape, but couldn’t get any more points in a 4-1 loss.
“I think I wrestled really well. I’m proud of myself,” Urbas said. “I worked hard, but there is always work to do, though. I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do when I’m continuing on.”
Cummins echoed his wrestler’s words: “I think he wrestled the best I’ve ever seen him wrestle. He definitely saved it up for the right day. He’s got a bright future in college. I’m excited to watch it happen.”
Ethan Rossman, 189 pounds
School: Bellefonte
Place: 4th
Recap: Rossman is not your typical wrestler.
He towers over most of his opponents with his 6-foot-4 inch frame. However, his longer body type gives him an advantage.
He used that advantage to secure his first PIAA medal, but it took a while to get to this point.
“It was a long road and a lot of hard work,” he said. “It wasn’t where I wanted to end up, but it still feels great.”
The Lock Haven commit joked after finishing fourth that sometimes he gets in his own way. He said his “head is horrible.” But while he sometimes psychs himself out, it’s go time once he gets to the mat.
“I get so nervous and so worried. It’s bad,” Rossman said. “My coaches will yell at me. Actually, before my first match, I was not doing so good. My nerves were getting to me. As soon as I stepped on the line, it’s like, boom it’s gone.”
The senior settled in quickly, too, to the tune of a 7-1 win over Hazleton’s Bryce Molinaro. He then suffered a heart-breaking 3-2 loss to Hampton’s Justin Hart in the semifinals.
Rossman wasn’t going to let his mind or the loss get to him.
“Once you lose, you can’t just put your head down,” he said. “You just have to bounce back and wrestle as hard as you can no matter what. You got to keep moving forward and not have any setbacks.”
Rossman moved forward into the consolation finals by edging Penn Manor’s Colt Barley, 4-3. In the consolation finals, Rossman found himself in a 5-0 hole to Nazareth’s Drew Clearie midway through the second period. It was too big of a hole to get out of as Rossman dropped a 9-3 contest.
“When you get here, it is tough matches,” coach Mike Maney said. “Collectively his postseason is probably the best he has wrestled throughout his career. I’m looking forward to watching him grow down the road at Lock Haven.”
Ethan Richner, 160 pounds
School: Bellefonte
Place: 7th
Recap: Richner had the toughest day of all four wrestlers in the county.
He wasn’t able to secure a win until his final match of the day, which placed him seventh. Even though it took longer to get that win, the senior was still happy.
“It was a good way to end it. I don’t know what happened those first two matches,” Richner said. “I wasn’t prepared I guess. Everyone is tough in this tournament, so you just have to be prepared.”
The Red Raiders’ wrestler didn’t seem himself in his quarterfinals match against Council Rock South’s Matt Colajezzi. He wasn’t able to get his offense going, and suffered a 1-0 loss.
In his consolation quarterfinals match, Richner again wasn’t able to get anything going and was down 4-1 after two periods of wrestling with Norwin’s Chase Kranitz.
Kranitz ended up beating Richner, 6-2, and sending him to the seventh-place match.
In that seventh-place match, everything just seemed to click and Richner was good as new against Bethlehem Catholic’s Landon Muth. He raced out to an 11-0 lead with 47 seconds remaining in the second period, scoring nine of those points off of a reversal and three sets of near-fall points.
Muth caught Richner in a cradle late in the third period, but the senior kept himself from being pinned and won 14-6.
“It’s not really how I wanted my senior year to go,” he said. “I wanted to be on top of the podium, but I’m just thankful to be able to have a season and be on the podium.”
With Richner’s time with Bellefonte’s program nearly over, Maney knows he’s going to miss Richner a lot.
“He’s been a solid kid for us many years,” Maney said. “He’s been through the youth program and the junior high. He was a guy we relied on for bonus points and consistency. He had a solid performance.”
PIAA Class 3A Championships
Saturday at Giant Center, Hershey
Team key: Abington Heights (AH), Armstrong (A), Belle Vernon (BV), Bellefonte (B), Bensalem (BS), Bethlehem Catholic (BC), Boyertown (BT), Cathedral Prep (CP), Central Bucks East (CBE), Central Bucks West (CBW), Central Dauphin (CD), Central Mountain (CM), Chambersburg (C), Chartiers Valley (CY), Coatesville (CT), Connellsville (CN), Council Rock North (CRN), Council Rock South (CRS), Cumberland Valley (CV), Dallastown (DT), Delaware Valley (DV), Dover (DV), Downingtown East (DE), Downingtown West (DW), DuBois (D), Easton (E), Franklin Regional (F), Greater Latrobe (G), Greensburg Salem (GS), Hampton (H), Hazleton (HZ), Hempfield (HF), Interboro (I), Kennett (K), Kiski Area (KA), La Salle College (L), Manheim Township (MT), Mifflin County (MC), Nazareth (N), Neshaminy (NY), North Penn (NP), Northampton (NH), Norwin (NW), Penn Manor (PM), Penn-Trafford (PT), Perkiomen Valley (PV), Pine Richland (PR), Quakertown (Q), Red Lion (RL), Selinsgrove (SG), Seneca Valley (SY), Solanco (S), Spring-Ford (SF), State College (SC), Strath Haven (SH), Stroudsburg (SB), Sun Valley (SV), Upper Darby (UD), WC Henderson (WCH), Wallenpaupack (WP), Waynesburg Central (WB), West Scranton (WS), Williamsport (WT), Wilson (W)
Team scores: 1. Waynesburg Central 100, 2. Hempfield 57, 3. Bethlehem Catholic 54, 4. Seneca Valley 50.5, 5. Nazareth 45, 6. Spring-Ford 40, 7. Franklin Regional 37, 8. Cathedral Prep 33, 9. Northampton 31, 10. Bellefonte 27, 37. State College 9
Finals
106: Kaedyn Williams, MT, dec. Cael Nasdeo, WT, 3-0; 113: Jacob Van Dee, CP, dec. Zach Jacaruso, DV, 3-1; 120: Mac Church, dec. Karl Shindledecker, C, 2-1 (TB2); 126: Tyler Kasak, BC, dec. Carter Dibert, F, 3-2; 132: Brian Priest, HF, dec. Dylan Chappell, SY, 6-0; 138: Finn Solomon, F, dec. Cole Homet, WB, 7-5; 145: Wyatt Henson, WB, dec. John Altieri, NW, 5-3; 152: Alejandro Herrera-Rondon, SY, dec. Rocco Welsh, WB, 3-1; 160: Jagger Condomitti, NH, dec. Jack McGill, SF, 5-3 (SV); 172: Luca Augustine, WB, dec. Trey Kibe, MC, 3-2; 189: Joey Milano, SF, major dec. Justin Hart, H, 15-5; 215: Jake Lucas, CV, dec. Josh Harkless, W, 3-1; 285: Nate Schon, SG, dec. Sean Kinney, NZ, 5-3 (SV)
Consolation finals
132: Jude Swisher, B, dec. Nathan Lucier, CT, 5-0; 172: Dominic Falcone, E, dec. Lance Urbas, SC, 4-1; 189: Drew Clearie, NZ, dec. Ethan Rossman, B, 9-3
Seventh-Place match
160: Ethan Richner, B, major dec. Landon Muth, BC, 14-6
Consolation semifinals
132: Swisher, B, dec. Colton Stoneking, WB, 7-1; 172: Urbas, SC, dec. Sammy Starr, KA, 5-3; 189: Rossman, B, dec. Colt Barley, PM, 4-3
Consolation quarterfinals
160: Chase Kranitz, NW, dec. Richner, B, 6-2; 172: Urbas, SC, dec. Sonny Sasso, N, 3-1
Semifinals
132: Chappell, SY, dec. Swisher, B, 2-1; 189: Hart, H, dec. Rossman, B, 3-2
Quarterfinals
132: Swisher, B, pinned Matt Mayer, BC, 1:59; 160: Matt Colajezzi, CRS, dec. Richner, B, 1-0; 172: Dominic Falcone, E, dec. Urbas, SC, 7-3; 189: Rossman, B, dec. Bryce Molinaro, HZ, 7-1
