Here are the Centre County high school wrestling leaders through Dec. 18

Editor’s note: The next stat leaders story will be in early January as schools head into winter break this week.

Another week has come and gone in the high school wrestling season.

This last week saw all five Centre County schools take part in a dual and a tournament. Only Penns Valley and Bald Eagle Area came away with dual wins.

The Rams topped Huntingdon, 34-24, on Tuesday as the Eagles took care of Bellefonte, 41-22, on the same day. Philipsburg-Osceola suffered a 47-17 loss to Clearfield on Tuesday too. On Wednesday, State College suffered a 42-20 loss to Central Dauphin.

On Friday and Saturday, Penns Valley and P-O took part in the Panther Holiday Classic at Mt. Aloysius College. BEA, Bellefonte and State College all traveled to Central Mountain High School on the same days for the King of the Mountain tournament.

The Little Lions had the best finish of all five teams in their tournaments with a third-place tally.

Plenty of action meant plenty of movement on the leaderboards, so let’s take a look:

Wins

This week saw four wrestlers get to double digit victories, and one pick up a milestone win.

Those four wrestlers reaching 10 wins on the year were a trio from the Rams in Jack Darlington, Colten Shunk and Ty Watson, and the Mounties’ Caleb Hummel. Of the four, Hummel recorded the most wins this week.

The freshman had six — all in the Panther Holiday Classic — on the way to his third-place finish at 114 pounds. Hummel filled the stat sheet with every type of victory except a major decision.

His 10th win came over Darlington in the consolation finals, 9-5.

Darlington, Shunk and Watson all earned wins in the dual on Tuesday, and each had four in the tournament. Shunk and Watson had the highest finishes for Penns Valley with each recording a second-place finish.

Shunk and Watson picked up their 10th wins in the semifinals. Shunk pinned Conemaugh Township’s Tristen Hawkins as Watson topped Marion Center’s Gage Heilbrun, 11-4.

Darlington reached that consolation finals match with Hummel by edging Boiling Springs’ Drew Scherer, 5-4, for his 10th win.

There are a trio of wrestlers behind these leaders with nine wins on the year. They are State College teammates Nick Pavlechko and Pierson Manville, and the Rams’ Conner Myers.

All three earned wins in their respective duals, but Pavlechko and Manville added five more in their tournaments to claim titles at the King of the Mountain. Pavlechko earned the 285-pound title as Manville took home the 139-pound crown.

Pavlechko cruised to his title by pinning his way to the semifinals. Manville bonused his way to the semifinals too, however the defending PIAA champ took on another defending PIAA champ in Central Mountain’s Dalton Perry.

Manville topped Perry 2-1 in ultimate tie-breakers.

The Eagles’ Coen Bainey was that wrestler who earned a milestone win. The American University commit stuck State College’s Thomas Hill in 40 seconds of their first round match for his 100th career victory.

Pins

Penns Valley should be renamed to Pins Valley as the Rams have three of the top five wrestlers in the county, and six in the top 10.

Shunk and teammate David Martin are the top two on the list with the elder in Martin leading the pack. Martin has eight pins on the season as he added four this week.

He pinned Huntingdon’s Devin Brenneman in the Tuesday dual. In the Panther Holiday Classic, Martin had three other falls to claim the top spot.

Shunk sits one behind as he only had two this week after leading last week.

Watson and Pavlechko are tied for third in the county with six pins apiece. Pavlechko used three falls to reach the semifinals of the King of the Mountain. He wrestled roughly 2.5 minutes combined in the three rounds of wrestling. Watson only had two pins this week.

Bellefonte’s Gage Long rounds out the top five with five falls. He had two in the King of the Mountain to get to five.

A week ago, BEA’s Jeffre Pifer had not even seen the mat yet. He had four falls this week to climb into a tie with nine other wrestlers for sixth in the county with four pins.

Pifer’s first bout of the season was sticking Bellefonte’s Jack McHail on his back on Tuesday. He then had three falls in the King of the Mountain.

Major Decisions

A new name appears at the top of this list in State College’s Asher Cunningham.

The sophomore added a pair of major decisions this week to lead the county with three. He topped Central Dauphin’s Mike Beers on Wednesday, 9-1.

Cunningham then made the semifinals at 145 pounds in the King of the Mountain by taking care of Franklin Regional’s Nate Stone, 11-2.

Shunk and Bellefonte’s Noah Weaver also added a pair of major decisions this week to climb into a three-way tie with last week’s leader in P-O’s Nate Fleck for second with two major decisions.

Shunk beat Huntingdon’s Landon Dunsmore with major decisions twice in one week. In the dual on Tuesday, the junior hung a 15-2 loss on Dunsmore. In the quarterfinals of the Panther Holiday Classic, Shunk topped Dunsmore, 9-1.

Weaver shut out BEA’s Hunter Ishler, 11-0, on Tuesday. He topped Boyertown’s JD Heiser, 9-1, in their consolation second round bout of the King of the Mountain.

Ten wrestlers picked up their first major decision of the year this week.

Technical Falls and Fastest Falls

The Little Lions reign supreme in the technical falls category. They have the top three wrestlers in the category with another two on the list.

Manville leads the county with four tech falls as he collected two on his way to his title. He outscored his opponents, 32-2.

The Cunningham brothers round out the top three. Hayden has three on the year with Asher up to two. They each had a technical fall this week.

Six county wrestlers added their first technical fall this past week in BEA’s Caleb Close, Bellefonte’s Grady Garrison and Gage Long, Shunk, Hummel and State College’s Carter Weaverling.

There were three new times added this week on the fastest falls list.

The Red Raiders’ Max Murray added his second time of the list by sticking Brookville’s Coyha Brown in 13 seconds. The time is good for third in the county and just in front of Murray’s 14-second pin.

Pavlechko added the fifth fastest fall by putting Murray’s teammate Colton Perryman on his back in 18 seconds. Pifer comes in right behind Pavlechko as he earned a victory in 20 seconds over Northern Lebanon’s Ryan Herman.

Pifer is tied with Penns Valley’s Brayden Lisowski.

Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest Falls

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

This story was originally published December 18, 2022 at 10:21 AM.

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.