Bellefonte sends two, and State College sends three wrestlers to state tournament
Bellefonte and State College competed in the PIAA Northwest 3A Regionals to advance a number of wrestlers to participate in their quest to 3A state championships.
Williamsport won the team championship by scoring 153 points on the night, followed by Mifflin County with 149 points and Central Mountain’s 147. A total of five Centre County wrestlers will advance to the state championships at Hershey next Saturday.
The Little Lions had three champions in Asher Cunningham (120 pounds), Pierson Manville (138) and Nick Pavlechko (215). The Raiders will send Jude Swisher (145) and Aidan O’Shea (132) to states.
Here’s a more in depth look of who moved onto the state tournament for the Red Raiders and Little Lions.
Bellefonte
Champions: Jude Swisher (145 pounds)
Other Qualifiers: Aidan O’Shea (132, 3rd)
Eliminated: Cameron Garcia (106), Garrett Choates (113), Noah Weaver (126), Gage Long (138), Nate Smith (152)
Team Score: 76.5 (8th place)
Recap: 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.
The result of his matches has given him confidence to be successful in the states.
“Riley Bower is as seasoned as they come,” Swisher said. “(He’s) a state medalist, a regional champ himself, he’s been winning tournaments since he could walk. That kid is legit. Williamsport coaches — they know what they’re doing. They breed winners. We had a close match in January and I came away from that 3-1. All I’ve thought about since that match was getting better. Here I demonstrated how much better I’ve gotten and next week (at states), I’m going to demonstrate it again.”
O’Shea had a tougher road to make it to the states. He lost by a 12-1 major decision to Williamsport’s Braden Bower. He went on to regroup by defeating Dubois’ Brandon Orr by a 7-0 decision in the consolation semifinals for his 100th career victory, and narrowly defeated Issac McGregor of Shikellamy by a 1-0 decision in the consolation finals for a bronze medal and punched his ticket to the state tournament in Hershey.
“One of the hardest things to do in this sport is when you’re in the semis, you’re six minutes away from going to the state tournament and you lose a tough match,” Maney said. “Then, you have to regroup in about 45 minutes and remember the ultimate goal to make it to next weekend, and he (O’Shea) was able to refocus and get a win under his belt and just wrestle a good solid match to punch his ticket to the states.”
State College
Champions: Asher Cunningham (120), Pierson Manville (138) and Nick Pavlechko (215)
Other Qualifiers: None
Eliminated: Jonathan Coates (106), Jacob Campbell (126), Josh Hershbine (160), Braden Newby (172), Carter Weaverling (189), Shane Focht (285)
Team Score: 124.5 (5th place)
Recap: Cunningham was the first State College wrestler to win gold on the day.
He began his day with 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. He’s taken many steps during the course of the season to prepare for a state title run. This is just another step that he’s climbed to get to his ultimate goal.
“It’s good competition,” Cunningham said. “It’s just another step in getting the state medal, a state title. It’s just to get familiar with these opponents because I might see them later on in the states.”
Manville also had a dominant semifinals round with an 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. The State College sophomore understands the responsibility that he, Cunningham and Pavlechko have to carry on the Little Lions to state championship victories in the future.
“I’m happy for Asher,” Manville said prior to Pavlechko’s match. “He’s my buddy, and he’s the closest thing to a little brother and I’m just really happy for him. With the State College program, it’s many more things to do. We’re getting better than we were last year. That’s what we like — improvements. I have a feeling that we can be a state-level contender for the championship next year.”
Pavlechko had a tougher road to win gold, but he was able to get the job done in crunch time. Following his fall over 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.
His battle took him back to his training during the course of the season.
“It’s just like a lot of things I worked on in practice,” Pavlechko said. “You’re down by a point, you’re down by two points — you’ve got to get the takedown for the win. So, it was right back to that. I had to go get the takedown for the win.”
This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 12:08 AM.
