Here are the Centre County high school wrestling leaders through Feb. 19

Saturday was quite the finale of the District 6 Class 2A and Class 3A Championships.

Nine Centre County wrestlers were able to claim District 6 titles with five of them coming from State College’s Hayden and Asher Cunningham, Pierson Manville, Carter Weaverling and Nick Pavlechko. Bald Eagle Area claimed three crowns in Lucas Fye, Coen Bainey and Caleb Close. Penns Valley’s Ty Watson was the last champ for the county.

In the end, 33 wrestlers advanced to the regional tournaments with the Eagles and Little Lions having the most at eight. Bellefonte had seven, Penns Valley had six and Philipsburg-Osceola had four.

BEA came away with the Class 2A title and coach Ron Guenot was named the Coach of the Year. Manville earned the Outstanding Wrestler award for the Class 3A championships.

Let’s take a look at the leaderboards in an abbreviated version this week:

Wins

There are now six athletes that have 30-plus wins on the season.

The Eagles’ Caleb Close leads the way with 35. He claimed four victories en route to his 172 pound title.

He has a nice two lead cushion over Bellefonte’s Gage Long, who was one of five county wrestlers to earn their 30th victory during the district championships.

Long pinned Tyrone’s Cohan Wallace in 33 seconds of their second round match, which was Long’s opening bout.

The others that collected their 30-plus wins were:

Bald Eagle Area: Bainey (32 wins) pinned Bellefonte’s Jackson Long in 2:38 of their quarterfinals match

Penns Valley: Watson (32) pinned United’s Caden Mccully in 4:19 of their quarterfinals bout

Philipsburg-Osceola: Caleb Hummel (33) shut out West Branch’s Bryce English, 15-0, in 4:06 of wrestling in their second round match; Marcus Gable (31) shut out the Red Raiders’ Max Murray, 8-0, in the quarterfinals

Several wrestlers went over 20-plus wins this week:

Bellefonte: Jackson Long (23) pinned Claysburg-Kimmel’s Brodie Soler in the second round at 2:57; Cameron Garcia (20) edged Mount Union’s Kamden Beatty, 4-1, in the consolation quarterfinals; Nash Irwin (20) snuck by United’s Zack Travis, 4-3, in their second round match; Wyatt Long (20) topped Juniata’s Anthony Maradiaga, 7-5, in the consolation fourth round.

Penns Valley: David Martin (20) beat Mount Union’s Deegan Rittenhouse, 10-4, to finish fifth.

There were a handful of wrestlers that earned their 10th-plus wins:

Bald Eagle Area: Liam Purcell (11) pinned Central’s Bailey Wilt in 2:08 of their consolation second round match; Alex Surovec (10) edged Huntingdon’s Eric Mykut, 4-2, in the consolation quarterfinals and secured a regional spot; Shawn Knepp (10) pinned Juniata’s Javier Lopez in 2:11 of their consolation first round match

Philipsburg-Osceola: Matthew Rowles (11) pinned DuBois’ Jason Gardner in 3:05 during a dual on Feb. 8

State College: Mason Sanderson (10) topped Hollidaysburg’s Logan Krupka, 4-2, in the consolation finals to secure a regional spot

Pins

The leader remains the same in Gage Long. He managed just one fall during the district championships, which put him at 26 for the year.

Bainey collected three falls to make his fourth district final, where he remained perfect in that round. He now has 25.

Pavlechko and last year’s pin king, Watson, each have 22 falls on the season. They were able to get their 20th fall recently.

Pavlechko decked Central Mountain’s Brayden Blackwell in 3:56 of the District 6 Class 3A team dual finals on Feb. 4. Watson flattened Clearfield’s Patrick Knepp in 3:07 of a dual on Feb. 7, but he had two more during the district tournament.

A host of wrestlers got to 10-plus pins:

Bald Eagle Area: Eric Clark (10 pins) stuck Southern Huntingdon’s Jeremiah Baron in 1:57 of their third round consolation bout; Kayson Tice handled Penn Cambria’s Isaiah Chyr in second round in 3:38.

Penns Valley: Jack Darlington (12) stuck River Valley’s Devin Blauser in 2:28 of their second round match; Brandon Corl (10) pinned West Branch’s Tyler Biggans in their consolation fourth round match in 4:55; Landen Hess (10) needed just 22 seconds to take care of Central’s Waldims Benitez in their consolation second round match; Brayden Lisowski (10) opened his first district tournament with a fall of Penn Cambria’s Layton Munyon in 2:26.

Philipsburg-Osceola: Ian Phillips (10) flattened Southern Huntingdon’s Caleb Leidy in 1:28 of their consolation second round match.

State College: Weaverling (11) took care of Altoona’s Michael Riccio in 46 seconds of their semifinals match.

Major Decisions

The Mounties’ Nate Fleck remained the leader here. He just extended his lead a little bit by picking up his seventh major decision of the year.

Fleck opened the district championships by topping Huntingdon’s Dom Peruso, 10-2.

Fye had two major decisions on his way to his first district title to give him five on the year. He’s tied with Close, Asher Cunningham and Bellefonte’s Noah Weaver.

Fye had an 8-0 shutout of Huntingdon’s Ryan Yocum in the quarterfinals. He made the finals by racking up a 12-2 victory over Mount Union’s AJ Chilcote.

Weaver joined this pack of wrestlers tied for second in the county as he came up just shy of a technical fall in a 16-2 win over West Branch’s Hunter Schnarrs to make the consolation finals.

Bellefonte’s Max Murray and Jackson Long are part of another group chasing that quartet with five. Murray and Long earned their fourth major decisions this past weekend.

Murray hung an 11-1 defeat on Huntingdon’s Devin Grubb in the consolation quarterfinals. Long shut out Forest Hills’ TJ Carroll, 10-0, to make the consolation quarterfinals.

Technical Falls & Fastest Falls

Weaver took over the lead in the technical fall category after sharing it with Manville and the Rams’ Colten Shunk.

Weaver used a 15-0 rout of P-O’s Haydn Kephart to open his district tournament in the second round in a time of 4:48. Weaver now has five technical falls on the season.

Hummel had two technical falls during the district championships to get to four on the year. He outscored his opponents 30-0.

Hummel opened his tournament in the second round by blanking West Branch’s Bryce English, 15-0, in 4:06 of wrestling. Then, he had another 15-0 win over River Valley’s Wyatt Taubler in 2:35 to make the consolation finals.

Close and Bellefonte’s Ezra Swisher were the only other wrestlers to secure a technical fall.

Close shut out West Branch’s Logan Folmar, 16-0 in 4:35, to make the district finals. Swisher earned his first tech when he topped Moshannon Valley’s Roman Faulds, 17-1 in 2:50 of his very first district championship match.

Asher Cunningham added a new fastest fall time to the list when he flattened Altoona’s Eli Wisor in 10 seconds of their semifinals match.

Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest Falls

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

This story was originally published February 20, 2023 at 9:00 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.