Here are the Centre County high school wrestling leaders through Dec. 11

Editor’s note: This is the first of a weekly installment to showcase the county’s statistical leaders.

The 2022-2023 high school wrestling action officially got started on Dec. 3.

State College was the first Centre County school to get some mat time under its belt. The Little Lions have had three duals — two in a dual tournament. They’ve lost all three with the most recent coming as a 36-35 heartbreaker against Shikellamy on Wednesday.

Bellefonte, Penns Valley and Philipsburg-Osceola all took part in tournaments on Saturday. Bald Eagle Area gets its action underway on Tuesday against the Red Raiders.

Bellefonte competed in the St. Marys Kickoff Tournament, where it finished first as a team with 10 total wrestlers getting their first taste of varsity wrestling. The Rams and Mounties took part in the Babbit Duals at River Valley High School.

Penns Valley finished with a perfect record at 5-0, and even had a perfect dual by tallying a 78-0 win over Meyersdale. The Rams also topped Derry (54-15), District 6 foe Glendale (49-19) and Southmoreland (47-22).

P-O was 4-1 on the day. It’s loss came to Penns Valley, 55-10. The Mounties victories came against River Valley (40-28), Southmoreland (49-24), Glendale (57-18) and another District 6 foe in Bellwood-Antis (69-6).

It will come as no surprise to see the leaderboards full of Penns Valley and P-O wrestlers for this week with all the action they had, so let’s take a look at the season’s first leaders:

Wins

There were a combined six wrestlers that had a perfect mark for their respective teams during the Babbit Duals for the Rams and Mounties to be tied for the county lead here.

Penns Valley had a quartet of wrestlers have an unblemished start to their season in Jack Darlington, Brayden Lisowski, Colten Shunk and Ty Watson. P-O was led by Nate Fleck and Ian Phillips.

All six wrestlers have five wins to get their seasons underway.

Shunk, Lisowski and Fleck all tallied bonus points in their five wins. Shunk had five pins. Lisowksi had three pins, a technical fall and a forfeit. Fleck had two pins, two major decisions and a forfeit.

Darlington and Watson nearly had bonus points but came up short. Darlington had two pins, two forfeits and a decision. Watson had four pins and a, 7-4 decision, that came over the Mounties’ Marcus Gable, which was a matchup of some of the county’s top wrestlers at their weight of 152 pounds.

Phillips basically filled the scorebook with a multitude of wins. He had two decisions, a pin, a major decision and a forfeit.

There were eight wrestlers that came up a win shy of being tied with the top six.

As mentioned, the Red Raiders had an individual tournament to kick of their season and saw several win titles. Ezra Swisher (127 pounds) and Noah Weaver (139) were those title winners for Bellefonte. They didn’t have a full bracket, so they went through a round robin style tournament.

Grady Garrison (172) made it to the finals of his weight for the Red Raiders, but came up just short. Gage Long (145) dropped his opening bout, but rallied with three straight wins for a third-place finish.

Jack McHail (152) and Max Murray (160) also had third-place finishes for Bellefonte.

As for State College, it has a quartet of wrestlers in Hayden Cunningham, Asher Cunningham, Pierson Manville and Nick Pavlechko, who have all competed in every dual and are perfect for the Little Lions.

There are 50 wrestlers who have collected at least one win.

Pins

The top three in this category all belong to the Rams.

Shunk leads the way with his five pins as teammates Watson and David Martin are one behind. Watson was the county pin king last season with 31, so he’s off to a good start already.

Shunk looked like a predator playing with his prey. None of his pin times were exceptionally quick, but he still got the job done. The quickest time of all of his falls was 1:49 over Derry’s Zander Nuttall, which was one of his two first-period pins.

All four of Watson’s pins came in the first period of his victories. His quickest came against Derry too, 1:31 over Zachary Panichelle.

Only one of Martin’s opponents made it to the third period of his pins — Meyersdale’s Bryan Donitzen, who Martin flattened in 4:22.

Six wrestlers in Pavlechko, Long, Swisher, Lisowski, Penns Valley’s Kollin Brungart and P-O’s Sam McDonald are all tied for fourth in the county with three pins a piece. All of Pavlechko’s falls have come in the first period of his bouts.

Long and Swisher each pinned their way to their respective finishes in the St. Marys Kickoff Tournament.

McDonald and Brungart will be heard from in the next category for how quickly they took care of their opponents.

A total of 40 wrestlers who have secured a pin so far.

Fastest Falls

This always seems to be the category that everyone looks to be at the top of every year. Because who wouldn’t want to have the title of having the fastest win in the county?

McDonald and Long hare that crown for now. Each wrestler came out and has set a tough mark to beat with a 12-second fall.

McDonald took care of River Valley’s Dane Curnow in their dual. Long put Ridgway’s Austin Young on his back in their consolation quarterfinals bout.

McDonald also has the ninth quickest time in the county when he flattened Southmoreland’s Micah McGeary in 34 seconds.

One of Bellefonte’s wrestlers getting their taste of varsity action was Max Murray, and he did so in style. He’s got the county’s third quickest pin in 14 seconds. He decked St. Marys Landon Cook in the quarterfinals of their 160-pound bout.

Lisowski and Darlington have the fourth and fifth fastest times to round out the top five. Lisowski stuck the Mounties’ Isaiah Smeal in 20 seconds. Darlington took care of Southmoreland’s Faryn Dewitt in 25 seconds.

Lisowski is also tied for 10th in the county with McHail as each wrestler has a 35-second pin.

This marks the first time that after the first action of the season, every fall time in this list was under one minute.

Technical Falls & Major Decisions

When it came to these two categories, there weren’t too many wrestlers that collected technical falls or major decisions in the first week of action.

There were just five that secured technical fall victories with a pair from State College in Hayden Cunningham and Manville recording two a piece.

Cunningham’s came on the same day, which was on Dec. 3 at the Gettysburg Duals. He outscored his opponents 36-4, and his biggest win was a 20-3 rout of Chambersburg’s Ashton Romberger.

Manville’s came in separate occassions, but they were identical scores of 21-4. He most recently topped Shikellamy’s CJ Keener in 5:02 on Wednesday, and beat Gettysburg’s Jahanzaib Nasiri in Gettysburg Duals.

Lisowski, and State College’s Asher Cunningham and Eric Weaver were the other wrestlers to secure those 15+-point wins.

As for the major decisions, Fleck is the only county wrestler to have more than one. Fleck outscored his opponents, 25-9, in those wins.

In all, there are eight wrestlers — two from each school that has competed so far — that have secured a major decision.

Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest Falls

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

This story was originally published December 11, 2022 at 12:57 PM.

Nate Cobler

Centre Daily Times

814-231-4609

Nate Cobler is a part-time reporter covering all things wrestling, either Penn State or Centre County’s high schools, for the Centre Daily Times. He’ll also cover other sports too. When he isn’t writing about sports, he is working for a local mortgage broker, Providence Mortgage Group.