Here are the Centre County high school wrestling leaders through Jan. 22

The end of the high school wrestling season is slowly approaching, which is hard to believe as it feels like it just started yesterday.

Next week, Centre County’s teams will begin their quest to make the PIAA dual championships, which are Feb. 9-11. Two weeks later, the county’s wrestlers will start working toward that ultimate goal of claiming a PIAA gold medal.

This past week saw Bald Eagle Area, Bellefonte, Penns Valley and Philipsburg-Osceola all have a dual, with the Eagles, Red Raiders and Mounties taking part in a tournament on Saturday. State College spent the week recouping from last weekend’s tournament.

On Tuesday, BEA thumped Hollidaysburg, 63-6, and the Rams took care of P-O, 51-14. Bellefonte suffered a 39-24 loss to Clearfield on Wednesday.

Saturday had the Mounties travel to Juniata High School for the Juniata Duals, and they finished third as a team. They topped South Williamsport, 49-19, suffered a 49-19 loss to Berks Catholic, and ended the day by beating the host Indians, 42-18 in the consolation finals match.

The Eagles, Red Raiders and Little Lions all squared off with Altoona, Central Mountain, Hollidaysburg, Jersey Shore and Shikellamy in the Big 7 Tournament at BEA.

Bellefonte had the highest finish as a team at third with 158.5 points. Placewinners for the Red Raiders were: Wyatt Long (2nd, 107), Cameron Garcia (2nd, 114), Ezra Swisher (2nd, 121), Jackson Long (2nd, 127), Gavin DuFour (7th, 133), Noah Weaver (3rd, 139), Gage Long (2nd, 145), Jack McHail (7th, 152), Max Murray (3rd, 160), Grady Garrison (4th, 172), Addison Shawley (4th, 189) and Nash Irwin (5th, 215).

The Eagles finished fourth with 137 points. Placewinners were: Liam Purcell (7th, 107), Kayson Tice (3rd, 114), Gavin Guenot (5th, 121), Coen Bainey (Champion, 127), Connor Maney (5th, 133), Hunter Ishler (7th, 139), Mason Reese (3rd, 145), Alex Surovec (4th, 145), Jeffre Pifer (2nd, 152), Gavin Bennett (6th, 152), Cameron Dubbs (6th, 160), Caleb Close (Champion, 172), Shawn Knepp (6th, 189), Nate Fry (7th, 189), Gage Gardner (3rd, 215) and Eric Clark (6th, 285).

State College was missing several of its usual starters, but finished seventh with 78 points. Little Lions’ placewinners were: Mason Sanderson (4th, 107), Nick Berrena (6th, 121), Johnathan Coates (6th, 121), Brady Bucher (3rd, 127), Eric Weaver (5th, 139), Wyatt Angeli (8th, 152), Taylor Sunday (7th, 215) and Nick Pavlechko (Champion, 285).

Let’s take a look at the leaderboards.

Wins

With the limited action this past week, the maximum number of wins any wrestler could’ve wrestled was four. The Big 7 Tournament had just eight teams, so if a bracket wasn’t completely full, that limited things even more.

There were seven wrestlers that had a perfect week on the mat: Pavlechko, Close, Bainey, P-O’s Caleb Hummel, Nate Fleck and Marcus Gable.

Hummel, Fleck and Gable got that maximum number of wins of four. They each went 3-0 during the Juniata Duals.

Hummel leads the Mounties with 21 victories on the year, which is tied for fifth in the county with Swisher, Weaver and Close. Fleck is right behind Hummel with 19 wins and is tied with Bainey for 10th in the county.

Gable is one behind Fleck.

Pavlechko, Close and Bainey all didn’t have full brackets at the Big 7, so they only were able to secure two wins a piece, but Close and Bainey added a dual win earlier in the week.

Gage Long still leads the way in this category as he added three more wins this week to get to 26. Long’s teammate Murray had three wins during his first and only Big 7 Tournament to climb the leaderboard.

Murray is tied with Pavlechko and Pavlechko’s teammate Pierson Manville for second in the county with 22 victories.

Centre County wrestling fans are very familiar with everyone previously mentioned, but they may have another to look forward to in Bucher. The sophomore got a taste of his first varsity action on Saturday, and did well.

Bucher had three wins during his first high school tournament with all three being pins on way to his third place finish.

Here’s a look at who eclipsed 20-plus wins this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Close (21 wins) pinned Bellefonte’s Grady Garrison in 1:34 of their semifinals match.

Bellefonte: Murray (22) topped Central Mountain’s Bryce Brungard, 8-3, in their Big 7 opening bout; Swisher (21) edged Clearfield’s Evan Davis, 2-1, on Wednesday; Weaver (21) recorded an 8-2 win over State College’s Weaver in the consolation semifinals.

Philipsburg-Osceola: Hummel (21) pinned Berks Catholic’s Christopher Smith in 4:47 of the second dual of the day on Saturday.

There were several to get to 10-plus wins this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Tice (11) pinned Central Mountain’s Jaggar Pardoe in 4:36 of their consolation semifinals bout; Maney (10) topped Hollidaysburg’s Mason Schenck, 6-0, in the fifth place match; Clark (10) pinned Shikellamy’s Lucas Wetzel in 1:59 of their Big 7 opener.

Philipsburg-Osceola: Ace Foster (10) received a forfeit against South Williamsport in the first dual of the day on Saturday.

Pins

Gage Long continues to steamroll his opponents.

This week saw him only collect two falls in the three matches that he wrestled, but he added to his county lead to get to 23 on the year. With plenty of action to go, he could end up somewhere between 30-35 pins in his final season.

Pavlechko tries to keep the pace with Long as he also had two pins this week. He pinned his way to his Big 7 title. The junior has 18 on the year now, which is good for second in the county.

Bainey is looking to catch Pavlechko as he had three pins in his three matches this week to get to 15. Bainey took care of Schenck on Tuesday and pinned his way to the Big 7 crown.

Pifer and Murray each added two pins a piece this week to get to 14, which is good for fourth in the county.

Murray closed out his Big 7 Tournament by going with back-to-back falls to claim third place. Pifer pinned Hollidaysburg’s Mitchell Baronner on Tuesday and opened his Big 7 with a fall.

While Bucher isn’t in the top 10, he did have three pins in his varsity debut. He opened the Big 7 by decking Shikellamy’s Daniel Hernandez in 3:45. After suffering a loss in the semifinals, the sophomore bounced back and flattened Central Mountain’s Zachary St. Clair in 1:48 of their consolation semifinals bout.

Bucher finished his day by again putting Hernandez on his back in 2:07 of their consolation finals match.

Here’s who got to 10-plus pins on the year this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Reese (11) stuck Altoona’s Eli Wisor in 2:15 of their consolation semifinals bout; Close (10) decked Garrison in 1:34 of their semifinals match.

Bellefonte: Jackson Long (11) flattened Jersey Shore’s Camden Baker in 2:54 of their Big 7 opener.

Major Decisions

Nothing really changed on this leaderboard from last week.

However, there were several wrestlers that were able to collect their second major decision of the year.

One of those were Gable, who had two major decisions this week.

He shut out Penns Valley’s David Martin, 9-0, on Tuesday. On Saturday, Gable racked up a 12-2 win over Berks Catholic’s Ricardo Tinoco, which was the second dual of the day for P-O.

Hummel earned his second major decision of the year when he topped the Rams’ Conner Myers, 14-2, on Tuesday. Hummel’s teammate Matthew Rowles shut out South Williamsport’s Landyn Gephart, 9-0, in the opening dual for the Mounties on Saturday.

There was one other wrestler to secure a major decision this week and it was Bellefonte’s Wyatt Long. He used an 8-0 win over Central Mountain’s Collin Bauman to open his first Big 7 Tournament.

Technical Falls & Fastest Falls

A week ago, there were no new times added to the fastest falls list.

This week, there were two, thus shrinking the time to beat to get into the top 10 to 14 seconds.

Bainey and Pavlechko added those two new times on Saturday, but they were the same — 11 seconds. It is good for third in county as Bainey had already had an 11-seconds victory earlier this year.

Bainey’s win came first as he decked Hollidaysburg’s James Bialo in the semifinals. Pavlechko cradled up Altoona’s Hayden Speece for the win in the Big 7 finals.

There was only one wrestler to have a technical fall this week, and that was the Red Raiders’ Weaver. After suffering a loss in his Big 7 opener, Weaver rebounded to rack up a 15-0 win over Hollidaysburg’s Jacob Brua in 2:59 of wrestling of their consolation quarterfinals match.

It was Weaver’s fourth technical fall, which is tied for the county lead with Manville.

Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest Falls

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

This story was originally published January 22, 2023 at 9:54 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.