Bald Eagle Area wrestling bonuses way to win over Mountain League foe Philipsburg-Osceola
“You get bonus points and win the close matches.”
This is Bald Eagle Area coach Ron Guenot’s recipe for a dual meet victory.
Guenot’s Eagles put that all together on Thursday night to top Mountain League rival Philipsburg-Osceola, 47-15.
BEA came into Thursday night’s dual after suffering its first loss of the season to Clearfield on Tuesday. It was a dual that Guenot felt his team wasn’t able to get those bonus points and close bout wins in.
“Two nights ago against Clearfield, we lost most of the close matches,” he said. “Tonight, we won most of them. We could’ve maybe had a let down from our loss against Clearfield, but we rebounded well. It’s what we asked the kids to do, and they came through for us.”
The Eagles won 10 of 14 bouts, with six of them coming with bonus points.
The dual began with BEA collecting those bonus points right away. The Eagles’ Noah Foltz racked up a 15-0 technical fall of Dominic Shaw in 3:27 to open the dual at 189 pounds. Foltz used four sets of nearfall points in the win.
Matthew Knepp followed by pinning Andrew Hensal in 1:52 to give BEA an early 11-0 lead.
P-O’s Chase Klinger swung the momentum into the Mounties’ corner when he pinned Eric Clark in 2:43. Klinger’s teammate Sam McDonald seemed to ride that momentum into his 106-pound match against Gavin Guenot.
McDonald came out and threw Guenot to his back on a headlock, but Guenot was able to avoid being pinned, and escaped. Guenot got a takedown of his own late in the first period to lead 3-2 after the period finished.
In the second period, the wrestlers started on their feet as that was what McDonald chose. He managed to take Guenot down again, and this time collected some nearfall points.
Guenot again fought of his back, and rolled through for a reversal. In the process of rolling through, McDonald was injured and called for time. The P-O wrestler grabbed the right side of his ribs. He was in pain, and eventually ran out of injury time to default out of the bout in 2:57.
“106 was a big swing match. We were in good positions,” Mounties coach Justin Fye said. “We were close to a fall a couple of times. I think it could’ve been called, but it’s hard to tell from where we are at, and where the referee’s position was. I thought Sammy did a good job there. If we get a pin there, people don’t understand sometimes how big momentum is.”
With the dual at 17-6, the Eagles collected back-to-back falls from Lucas Fye (113 pounds) and Coen Bainey (120).
Fye didn’t take long to pick up his win as he pinned Layne Russell in nine seconds. Bainey stuck Hunter Kephart in 1:33.
The Mounties’ Nick Coudriet stopped the bleeding for a brief moment as he used a reversal early in the third period for the first points in a 3-0 win over Hunter Gardner.
BEA went on another winning streak starting at 132 pounds.
Kevin Taylor nearly had a major decision in a 9-2 win over Scott Frantz. In the highlight bout of the dual, the Eagles’ Jeffre Pifer squared off with Marcus Gable at 138 pounds.
“We were hoping that matchup would play out and it did,” Guenot said. “Two very tough wrestlers. It played up to the hype. It ended up coming down to the last couple of seconds.”
Pifer scored the first points thanks to a takedown with 1:14 left in the first period. In the second period, Gable earned a penalty point, and rode Pifer out for the entire period.
To start the third period, Gable collected a reversal to go up 3-2 early. With 30 seconds remaining, Pifer earned a reversal of his own, and recorded some nearfall points to pick up a hard-fought 6-3 win.
“(1)38 was a tough match. We were in a position to score a couple of times,” coach Fye said. “It didn’t come out on our end. They are definitely going to wrestle again. Those are two of the better (1)38 pounders in the district and region, so they are going to meet up a few more times.”
BEA went up 38-9 in the dual thanks to Tayten Yoder winning another one of those close matches — 2-0 over Ian Phillips at 145 pounds.
Austin Foster earned the last win of the night for P-O when he picked up a defensive fall at 152 pounds in 2:36.
The Eagles’ Cameron Dubbs’ first-period takedown was just enough to edge Luke Hughes, 3-2, at 160 pounds. Dubbs’ teammate Caleb Close ended the dual with a pin in 3:03.
“I thought we wrestled well. Overall, it was a good team effort,” Guenot said of the win. “I liked what I saw. There was a lot of fight and conditioning looked solid.”
The Eagles get a little bit of a break now, but the Mounties will have to put this dual in the rearview mirror. They get a day off before hosting the Mountaineer Classic on Saturday.
“This is our fourth dual meet, and some of these guys it’s their third match they’ve wrestled,” coach Fye said. “We are going to talk about the good things that happened. You don’t dwell on bad things because that’s not going to make you have a positive attitude. We got to keep building and getting better. It is one match. We got to get ready to come back on Saturday now.”
Bald Eagle Area 47, Philipsburg-Osceola 15
Thursday at Wingate
189: Noah Foltz, BEA, tech. fall Dominic Shaw, 15-0 (3:27)
215: Matthew Knepp, BEA, pinned Andrew Hensal, 1:52
285: Chase Klinger, P-O, pinned Eric Clark, 2:43
106: Gavin Guenot, BEA, injury def. Sam McDonald, 2:57
113: Lucas Fye, BEA, pinned Layne Russell, :09
120: Coen Bainey, BEA, pinned Hunter Kephart, 1:33
126: Nick Coudriet, P-O, dec. Hunter Gardner, 3-0
132: Kevin Taylor, BEA, dec. Scott Frantz, 9-2
138: Jeffre Pifer, BEA, dec. Marcus Gable, 6-3
145: Tayten Yoder, BEA, dec. Ian Phillips, 2-0
152: Austin Foster, P-O, pinned Mason Reese, 2:36
160: Cameron Dubbs, BEA, dec. Luke Hughes, 3-2
172: Caleb Close, BEA, pinned Jimmy Richtscheit, 3:03
Takedowns: P-O 6, BEA 15
Records: P-O 1-3, BEA 3-1
Next match: Mountaineer Classic at Philipsburg-Osceola, Saturday, 9 a.m.; Bald Eagle Area at Penns Valley, Tuesday, 7 p.m.
This story was originally published January 7, 2022 at 12:01 AM.
