15 Centre County wrestlers reach District 6 Class 2A semifinals, earn spot in PIAA Southwest Regional
In a world where things seem to be getting back to normal, everything felt normal inside Altoona High School’s Fieldhouse on the first day of the District 6 Class 2A wrestling championships.
Bald Eagle Area, Penns Valley and Philipsburg-Osceola got their postseasons started with a bang as the teams combined for 15 semifinalists on Friday. Those 15 wrestlers also secured their spots in the PIAA Southwest Regional tournament in two weeks as they can finish no lower than sixth place — the amount of qualifiers moving on.
The Mounties have the most semifinalists with six. They are tied with Forest Hills with the most semifinalists of all the teams competing. It comes as no surprise that those two squads lead the team race.
The Rangers have 94 points to lead overall. P-O is second with 90 points.
The Eagles have five semifinalists, and their 81 points have them sitting in third in the team race. The Rams have four semifinalists and is fifth with 76 points.
Tyrone rounds out the top five teams in fourth with 78.5 points.
At 120 pounds, three of the four remaining wrestlers alive for the crown are from Centre County.
Here’s a look at how each of the county’s programs after Friday’s action.
Philipsburg-Osceola
Semifinalists: Nick Coudriet (120), Scotty Frantz (126), Marcus Gable (132), Austin Foster (145), Luke Hughes (152), Chase Klinger (285)
Others alive: Sammy McDonald (106), Hunter Kephart (113), Nate Fleck (138), Jimmy Richscheit (160), Dom Shaw (189)
Eliminated: Andrew Hensal (215, 2-2)
Team score: Second, 90 points
Recap: Mounties coach Justin Fye was all smiles after the day came to an end.
Who wouldn’t be if their team was sitting in second place of the team race, and had almost all of their wrestlers still alive on day two.
“It was a successful day. You asked me what our goal was,” Fye said. “I said, ‘We have seven guys seeded, and we get eight or nine (qualifiers). That’s good.’ We’re coming back tomorrow with 11 guys. The guys wrestled really well today. We got a lot of pins.
“We talked about in a tournament, if you can pin somebody, you can conserve a little energy, that’s really big. It gets guys confident. I felt our guys wrestled really well, even our guys that lost matches, were wrestling hard the whole time. Those six guys in the semifinals, they wrestled complete matches.”
P-O had 13 pins in all on Friday with all but one of those semifinalists collecting at least one fall. Klinger had the fastest victory of the semifinalists with a 43-seconds victory in the second round.
Klinger, Frantz and Foster all had two pins a piece on the day. Fleck also had two pins.
Coudriet had the easiest day of all of his teammates as he only had one match, which was a pin in 47 seconds over United’s Michael Monty, who Coudriet beat earlier in the year, 6-2.
As Coudriet was collecting his fall, Frantz was on the adjoining mat looking for a pin of his own, which he finished off.
“I was over watching Nick’s match. I was kind of watching what was going on with Scotty,” Fye said, “and Nick just took his kid over with the cradle. It was almost simultaneous falls. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t know what happened at first. Then I saw our coaches standing up and clapping, and I was like, Alright, here we go.”
Note: Philipsburg-Osceola’s Corey Wood was named the District 6 Class 2A junior high coach of the year.
Bald Eagle Area
Semifinalists: Lucas Fye (113 pounds), Coen Bainey (120), Jeffre Pifer (138), Caleb Close (172), Noah Foltz (189)
Others alive: Gavin Guenot (106), Hunter Gardner (126), Kevin Taylor (132), Tayten Yoder (145), Mason Reese (152), Cameron Dubbs (160), Matthew Knepp (215)
Eliminated: Eric Clark (285, 0-2)
Team score: Third, 81 points
Recap: Eagles coach Ron Guenot seemed rather disappointed in how his team competed during the first day of the postseason.
He felt his team lost some matches that he knows they need to win in order to claim the team title.
“I thought we could have had a better day overall. We lost close matches,” Guenot explained. “If you’re going to be winning the team title on Saturday night, you got to win those close matches. We got to turn that around tomorrow (Saturday). Instead of losing by one or two or three points, we need to win those close matches. I think that was kind of the theme for the day, and hopefully we can turn that around tomorrow (Saturday).”
Even though BEA has five semifinalists, their three No. 1 seeds in Fye, Bainey and Foltz didn’t get a chance to do a whole lot of work for their team.
The trio had just one match a piece, which limited their ability to score points for the Eagles, but they made the most of it by earning pins. Foltz’s victory was the quickest of the three, when he put Huntingdon’s Lincoln Miller on his back in 30 seconds.
Bainey was the next quickest when he flattened Juniata Valley’s Lucas Dick in 59 seconds. Fye finished off his win with only seven seconds remaining in the second period of his match with Forest Hills’ Brevin Michuk.
“It was unfortunate, they didn’t get to wrestle until the quarterfinals,” Guenot said. “But, that’s the hand we’re dealt. They all three got falls. We expect them to do something similar to that tomorrow. Hopefully, they’ll be in the finals after that.”
Pifer and Close each opened their days with falls, but only managed to get decisions in the quarterfinals to advance.
Even though Guenot didn’t name off any of those close match losses, he was probably thinking about Gavin Guenot’s, Reese’s and Dubbs’ quarterfinals matches. If those three were able to come up on the winning end, the Eagles would’ve been in the driver’s seat in the team race.
Gavin Guenot dropped a tough 6-4 defeat to Mount Union’s Mason Beatty. Reese also suffered a 6-4 loss to River Valley’s Cole Stuchal. Dubbs dropped a 2-1 loss to Penn Cambria’s Austin McCloskey in ultimate tie-breaker No. 2.
“Momentum is huge in these type of situations. You get the crowd into it,” coach Guenot said. “You get a big win. You get the next guy all fired up. We need to do that tomorrow starting right out of the gate with our lightweights. We didn’t really get that going today. We didn’t keep that momentum. When we got it going, we didn’t keep it going, and that’s what we hopefully can do tomorrow.”
Penns Valley
Semifinalists: Jack Darlington (106), Colten Shunk (120), Ty Watson (145), Hunter Lyons (189)
Others alive: Chase Fleshman (126), Nate Long (132), Ethan Fetterolf (138), David Martin (152), Micah Fetterolf (160), Cole Felker (172), Kollin Brungart (215)
Eliminated: None
Team score: Fifth, 76 points
Recap: The Rams are the lone county team to have all of its wrestlers still alive after the first day came to an end.
They also had the least amount of wrestlers in the county at 11.
“It’s good to have everyone alive,” coach Joel Brinker said. “Obviously, you always want more to punch their ticket (to regionals) today (Friday). They’re in contention, so we got to battle back. I don’t think it was a bad day by any means. It was a solid day and solid effort. Let’s just keep plugging away.”
Darlington, Watson and Lyons each had to earn two wins to reach the semifinals. Watson and Lyons each had bonus points in their victories.
Watson, who is the top seed, collected his 25th pin of the year in his opening win over Moshannon Valley’s Jalen Kurten. The Penns Valley wrestler then used an 11-2 major decision over Westmont Hilltop’s David Ray to make the semifinals.
Lyons pinned his way to the semis. He opened by putting West Branch’s Austin Kerin on his back in 1:15. In the quarterfinals, Lyons took care of Tyrone’s Jason Barr in 1:54.
Darlington opened by pinning Richland’s Alexander Roles in 1:16. He then used a bear hug to earn the winning takedown of Forest Hills’ Isaiah Shilcosky in a 6-4 sudden victory-win in the quarterfinals.
Shunk had just one match, where he pinned Mount Union’s AJ Chilcote in 3 minutes, 51 seconds.
“They’ve been consistent all year with winning and taking care of business,” Brinker said of his semifinalists. “We got some good ones tomorrow morning in semis that we got to get ready for. I expect them to compete well.”
Those seven wrestlers alive for the Rams in the consolation bracket need to collect two wins on Saturday to secure their spots for the regional tournament.
Fleshman will have the longest path, should he clinch a regional spot. He was dropped into the consolation bracket after suffering a loss in the first round.
The others except for Brungart all made the quarterfinals before dropping down into the consolation rounds. Brungart suffered a loss in the second round.
“They have to go hard. They know it,” Brinker said. “They know what they’re up against and stuff, and what they have to do. I expect them to rebound, the ones that didn’t get through tonight (Friday), I think they’ll put themselves in contention to move on.”
District 6 Class 2A Championships
Friday at Altoona
Team key: Bald Eagle Area (BEA), Bellwood-Antis (BA), Cambria Heights (CH), Central (C), Claysburg-Kimmel (CK), Forest Hills (FH), Glendale (G), Huntingdon (H), Juniata Valley (JV), Marion Center (MC), Moshannon Valley (MV), Mount Union (MU), Penn Cambria (PC), Penns Valley (PV), Philipsburg-Osceola (P-O), Richland (R), River Valley (RV), Southern Huntingdon (SH), Tyrone (T), United (U), West Branch (WB), Westmont Hilltop (WH)
Team scores: 1. Forest Hills 94, 2. Philipsburg-Osceola 90, 3. Bald Eagle Area 81, 4. Tyrone 78.5, 5. Penns Valley 76, 6. Huntingdon 69, 7. Penn Cambria 64.5, 8. Glendale 55, 9. Marion Center 52.5, 10. Central Cambria 47.
Quarterfinals
106: Jack Darlington, PV, dec. Isaiah Shilcosky, FH, 4-2 (SV); Mason Beatty, MU, dec. Gavin Guenot, BEA, 6-4; Jacob Sombronski, U, pinned Sammy McDonald, P-O, :36; 113: Lucas Fye, BEA, pinned Brevin Michuk, FH, 3:53; 120: Coen Bainey, BEA, pinned Lucas Dick, JV, :59; Colten Shunk, PV, pinned AJ Chilcote, MU, 3:51; Nick Coudriet, P-O, pinned Michael Monty, U, :47; 126: Scotty Frantz, P-O, pinned Caden Chilcote, MU, 3:16; 132: Ashton Sipes, T, tech. fall Kevin Taylor, BEA, 16-1 (4:02); Marcus Gable, P-O, major dec. Nate Long, PV, 13-4; 138: Easton Toth, FH, pinned Ethan Fetterolf, PV, 1:02; Jeffre Pifer, BEA, dec. Lukas Walk, T, 6-0; 145: Ty Watson, PV, major dec. David Ray, WH, 11-2; Austin Foster, P-O, pinned Devin Grubb, H, :50; 152: Nathan Little, PC, dec. David Martin, PV, 7-1; Cole Stuchal, RV, dec. Mason Reese, BEA, 6-4; Luke Hughes, P-O, dec. Stephen Hanley, WH, 1-0; 160: Zeke Dubler, G, pinned Micah Fetterolf, PV, 1:57; Austin McCloskey, PC, dec. Cameron Dubbs, BEA, 2-1 (UTB2); 172: Tommy Cohenour, SH, dec. Cole Felker, PV, 10-6; Caleb Close, BEA, dec. Tye Templeton, FH, 2-0; 189: Noah Foltz, BEA, pinned Lincoln Miller, H, :30; Hunter Lyons, PV, pinned Jason Barr, T, 1:54; Austin Wagner, PC, major dec. Dom Shaw, P-O, 8-0; 215: Ben Carolus, JV, injury def. Matthew Knepp, BEA, 5:16; 285: Chase Klinger, P-O, pinned Wyatt Holsinger, C, 4:34
Consolation Third Round
126: Chase Fleshman, PV, dec. Dorian Hanley, WH, 5-3; 138: Nate Fleck, P-O, dec. Trey Talko, PC, 4-3; 145: Tayten Yoder, BEA, dec. Jack Sheredy, CH, 3-0; 160: Jimmy Richscheit, P-O, pinned Calvin Rombough, MC, :29; 215: Cade Krouse, U, dec. Andrew Hensal, P-O, 2-1; Kollin Brungart, PV, pinned Caleb McKinney, T, :45
Consolation Second Round
138: Fleck, P-O, pinned Jack Simpson, JV, 1:25; 145: Yoder, BEA, pinned Mason Buckley, JV, :38; 215: Hensal, P-O, dec. Tommy Kitchen, CH, 6-0; 285: Jonah McCoy, WH, pinned Eric Clark, BEA, 3:57
Second Round
106: Darlington, PV, pinned Alexander Roles, R, 1:16; Guenot, BEA, pinned Autumn Shoff, MV, 1:58; McDonald, P-O, pinned Hunter Jones, CH, 3:18; 113: Michuk, FH, major dec. Kephart, P-O, 12-0; 126: Zach Vereshack, G, dec. Gardner, BEA, 4-2; Frantz, P-O, pinned Caden Milne, R, 4:31; Landon Dunsmore, H, major dec. Fleshman, PV, 10-2; 132: Taylor, BEA, dec. TJ Carroll, FH, 7-3; Long, PV, pinned Carter Gilmore, MC, 1:00; Gable, P-O, pinned Nick Morningstar, JV, 3:03; 138: E. Fetterolf, PV, pinned, Trey Talko, PC, :55; Pifer, BEA, pinned Adam Blauser, RV, :47; 145: Watson, PV, pinned Jalen Kurten, MV, 1:01; Foster, P-O, pinned Yoder, BEA, 4:45; 152: Martin, PV, pinned Max Baker, C, 1:34; Reese, BEA, dec. Aiden Gallaher, U, 3-2; Hughes, P-O, dec. Austin Shoff, MV, 3-1; 160: M. Fetterolf, PV, pinned Julius Diossa, BA, 1:29; Dubbs, BEA, pinned Andrew Ross, JV, 5:50; Jayce Reck, MU, pinned Richscheit, P-O, 1:49; 172: Felker, PV, pinned Ethan Claycomb, CK, :44; Close, BEA, pinned Jermaine Myers, T, 1:36; 189: Lyons, PV, pinned Austin Kerin, WB, 1:15; Shaw, P-O, dec. Kory Marsalko, FH, 9-8; 215: Knepp, BEA, pinned Mitchell Hart, SH, 3:56; Mason Raymond, PC, pinned Brungart, PV, 1:05; Britton Spangle, G, pinned Hensal, P-O, 1:36; 285: Klinger, P-O, pinned Braylon Rydbom, CH, :43
First Round
138: Fleck, P-O, pinned Nick Stavola, WB, 2:44; 145: Yoder, BEA, pinned Tucker Lindrose, R, 1:48; 215: Hensal, P-O, pinned Gaven Cassick, WH, 3:59; 285: Tyler Biggans, WB, pinned Clark, BEA, 2:35
This story was originally published February 18, 2022 at 11:42 PM.
