Who should be the Centre Daily Times Athlete of the Week for Feb. 28-March 5? Vote here
Editor’s note: The Centre Daily Times will publish a weekly poll on Monday mornings for readers to choose the Athlete of the Week for the previous week of competition. The poll will close at noon Friday.
Here are this week’s nominees for the Centre Daily Times high school athlete of the week presented in alphabetical order. They were selected by the CDT sports staff via stats compiled by the CDT or sent to cdtscores@centredaily.com.
Vote for your favorite. If you’d like to nominate a player’s performance for future weeks, or believe a deserving nominee is missing from this week’s poll, please contact us via email at cdtscores@centredaily.com.
Bellefonte girls swimming
Kiaha McCool (backstroke), Finley Musser (100 breaststroke), Katelyn Packer (fly) and Emma Pringle (freestyle) won the 200-yard medley relay to open up the PIAA 2A District 6 Championships. McCool won the 200-yard freestyle and Kate Rarrick won bronze. Addie Pringle won bronze in the 50-yard freestyle and Packer also won bronze in the 100-yard fly. Musser, Emma and Addie Pringle and Rarrick won silver in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
Jude Swisher, Bellefonte wrestling
Swisher won his fourth consecutive PIAA 3A Northwest Regional gold medal on Saturday. He began with an 18-1 technical fall over Altoona’s Will Young in the semifinals and continued with a 7-0 decision over Williamsport’s Riley Bower in the finals.
State College swimming (boys and girls)
State College boys and girls took first place in the PIAA District 6 AAA Championships. The State College boys won the 200-yard medley relay (Tyler Uhlig, Shawn Erdley, John Brownstead and Sam Huggins) and followed up with a victory in the 200-yard freestyle with a team of Erdley, Todd Siekman, Erik Witt, Ryan Willis and the 400-yard freestyle — featuring Huggins, Witt, Uhlig, Brownstead.
The girls led off with a Jade Castro, Mackenzie Pagett, Ally Koehle and Madison Watschke victory in the 200-yard medley relays to begin March 4’s PIAA 3A District 6 Championships. Castro also won the 200-yard IM, 200-yard freestyle relay and the 100-yard backstroke. Pagett won the 100-yard backstroke. Koehle, Nora Hein, Kelly Brownstead and Kowalik won gold in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
State College also won seven silver medals: Kowalik 200-yard freestyle, Pagett 200-yard IM, Kelly Brownstead 50-yard freestyle, Koehle 100-yard fly, Hein 500-yard freestyle, Lily Bang 100-yard backstroke, Watschke 100-yard breaststroke) and five bronze medals (Kate Doucette 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle, Alex Hein 200-yard IM, Watschke 50-yard freestyle, Brownstead 100-yard freestyle).
State College wrestling
Asher Cunningham (120), Pierson Manville (138) and Nick Pavlechko (215) all won gold at the PIAA Northwest 3A Regional on Saturday.
Cunningham had a 17-0 technical fall over Central Mountain’s Luke Ananea in the semifinals. Cunningham continued his domination with a 16-3 major decision over Juniata’s Casey Smith in the finals for gold.
Manville had a 18-3 technical fall over Mifflin County’s Jake Cunningham. Manville went on to defeat Central Mountain’s Taylor Weaver 12-2 in the finals.
Pavlechko defeated Selinsgrove’s Steven Miller in the semifinals, Pavlechko met his match in Mifflin County’s Anson Wagner in the finals. Wagner had a takedown with 1:48 left in the first period. Pavlechko answered back with an escape to trail 2-1 after the first period. Wagner had an escape in the second period with 1:10 remaining to take a 3-1 lead. Pavlechko stormed back late in the third period, scoring on an escape (0:49) and a takedown with 25 seconds left for the 4-3 decision.
Ty Watson, Penns Valley wrestling
Watson (145) has claimed 38 victories and no losses on the season and went on to win gold in the PIAA Southwest 2A Regional. He shut out Trevor Weyandt of Chestnut Ridge 7-0 in the finals.
