3 Centre County wrestlers reach finals of PIAA Class 2A SW Regional, with 1 winning gold
Penns Valley’s Ty Watson has won 38 wrestling matches this year, making him undefeated on the season.
And on Saturday, the sophomore earned a gold medal at the PIAA Class AA Southwest Region Tournament at Peters Township High School.
Watson was one of three local wrestlers to reach the finals of this rugged tournament, but the only winner.
Watson should have a good seed when he next participates in the PIAA Class AA Wrestling Championships at the Giant Center in Hershey, which gets underway Thursday morning.
Joining Watson in Hershey will be teammate Jack Darlington, who was sixth at 106 pounds. Bald Eagle Area had four qualifiers: Lucas Frye, who was second at 113; Coen Bainey, who was second at 120; Caleb Close, who was fourth at 172; and Noah Foltz, who took fourth at 189. Philipsburg-Osceola had two seventh-place finishers and an eighth.
Chestnut Ridge won the team title with 197.5 points. Burgettstown was second with 118 points and Forest Hills was 10 points behind Burgettstown in third place.
Watson, who was 9-5 last season, said he was confident he was “going to come out on top.”
And he did, shutting out Trevor Weyandt of Chestnut Ridge, 7-0, in the finals. Watson made it to the finals with three straight pins: 3:13 over Chase Brandebura of Carlynton; 3:16 over Austin Foster of Philipsburg-Osceola in the quarterfinals and 5:36 over fourth-seeded Chase Frameli of Jefferson-Morgan.
“It’s just a number,” Watson said of his record. “I’m just confident when I go and wrestle my match. It was a hard-fought match and I wrestled well. I’m happy.”
Bald Eagle Area wrestlers would have been happier had they had wins in the finals. But Fye was pinned by Landon Bainey of West Branch in just over a minute. And Coen Bainey ran into a buzz saw that was Bentworth’s Chris Vargo, who took a 4-0 decision.
“The plan was just to go out and wrestle like Lucas can and score points,” said Bald Eagle Area head coach Ron Guenot. “Not sure whether we were prepared to wrestle. I don’t know what happened. That’s not taking anything away from Landon and Vargo. The plan was just to go out and wrestle and we didn’t do it.”
Gavin Stewart of Marion Center won by default over Close. Brenan Morgan decisioned Foltz, 11-5. Both matches were third-place battles.