Here’s who made moves on Centre County’s wrestling leaderboards as the new year begins

The 2024 portion of the high school wrestling season kicked off with some Centre County schools getting duals in, while others took part in the first Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference tournament.

Philipsburg-Osceola and State College were the schools that had duals this week. The Mounties also competed in the LHAC tournament on Friday and Saturday along with Bald Eagle Area, Bellefonte and Penns Valley.

The Little Lions went 2-0 with wins over Williamsport (62-9, Tuesday) and Cumberland Valley (40-21, Thursday). They are now 4-3 and have a three-match win streak rolling.

State College was going to wrestle Bishop McDevitt on Saturday, but it was postponed due to the snowstorm that hit the state. The schools will make it up on Jan. 20.

P-O suffered a 40-27 loss to Mount Union on Wednesday.

In the LHAC tournament, the Eagles had the highest team finish in third place with 166 points, trailing Bishop McCort (245.5 points) and Chestnut Ridge (173).

The Rams (8th, 122.5 points) and Mounties (10th, 104.5) had top-10 finishes. The Red Raiders were just outside the top 10 with an 11th- place finish and 80.5 points.

BEA and P-O took part in the Curwensville girls tournament on Saturday as the only action of the week, so there wasn’t too much movement on the leaderboards.

The Lady Eagles finished 16th as a team with 22 points as the Lady Mounties were fourth with 81 points. Hickory won the event with 122 points.

BEA’s Grace Crestani and P-O’s Isabella DuVall each were able to get 10 wins on the season. Crestani’s 10th win was a pin of Saegertown’s Zoey Sample.

DuVall, who had four wins to earn a title, used a 6-0 shutout of Saegertown’s Kacie Mook in the finals for her 10th victory.

Here’s a look at this week’s leaderboard updates:

Boys

Wins

P-O’s Marcus Gable was the lone Centre County wrestler to secure a LHAC title. Although he isn’t in the top 10 yet, he was one of six county wrestlers to earn four victories in the conference’s first tournament.

Gable filled the stat sheet as he had a victory of every kind — pin, technical fall, major decision and a regular decision. He added a win in the dual against the Trojans to give him five for the week and 15 on the season, which leads the Mounties, and is just outside the top 10.

The others to collect four wins at the LHAC tournament were Bellefonte’s Wyatt Long and Noah Weaver, Penns Valley’s Ty Watson and Ethan Fetterolf, and BEA’s Dawson Lomison.

Long is tied with teammate Ezra Swisher for third in the county with 18 wins a piece. The duo is chasing another set of teammates in State College’s Asher Cunningham and Nick Pavlechko.

Cunningham remains the county leader as he added two more wins this week to get to 23. Pavlechko had two victories as well to get to 21, becoming the second county wrestler to get to 20.

His 20th win was a pin of Williamsport’s Hasin Cobb in 1:47.

The Eagles Lucas Fye and Caleb Close are both inching closer to historical milestones. After this week’s action, both wrestlers are now only two wins away from 100 for their careers.

Here’s the collection of wrestlers to get to 10-plus wins this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Lomison (11 wins) shut out Clearfield’s Adam Rougeux, 10-0, in their consolation quarterfinals bout; Mason Reese (11) pinned Penns Valley’s Brayden Lisowski in 3:16 of their quarterfinals match; Cameron Dubbs (10) topped Bellefonte’s Jack McHail, 6-1, in the second round; Connor Maney (10) pinned Tyrone’s Remington Fleck in 3:54 of their seventh-place tilt

Penns Valley: Landen Hess (10) pinned the Eagles’ Eric Clark in 2:07 of their seventh-place match

Philipsburg-Osceola: Averi Gable (12) pinned Johnstown’s Wonyel Hiller in 4:54 of their second round match; Caleb Hummel (10) shut out Central Cambria’s Burke Niebauer, 6-0, in their semifinals match

Pins

Everyone is chasing Pavlechko, who has 16 pins as part of his 21 victories.

The Indiana commit added a pair of falls this week to get to 16.

Fetterolf is the closest county wrestler at 13. He had a pin in the second round and consolation quarterfinals.

Watson, Reese and the Red Raiders’ Luke Hockenberry all collected three pins during the LHAC tournament. Watson (11 falls) and Reese (10) find themselves in the top 10 as Hockenberry is just on the outside with seven.

Watson opened his tournament with a fall of Somerset’s Brady Brewer, which set the Rams’ all-time pin mark. The mark was previously held by Curtis Decker. It was Watson’s 71st career pin, but after the tournament ended, he’s now at 73.

Here’s a look at who got to 10-plus pins this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Fye (11 pins) stuck Penns Valley’s Joel Conklin in 2:55 of their quarterfinals match; Close (11) flattened Central’s John Pulcine in 1:18 of the second round; Reese (10) got the quick win over Richland’s Tucker Lindrose in their fifth-place match.

Penns Valley: Watson (11) put P-O’s Nate Fleck on his back in 1:02 of the quarterfinals

Technical falls

There is a new leader at the top here.

Weaver has surpassed Penns Valley’s Colten Shunk this weeks as he recorded two technical falls during the LHAC tournament.

Weaver opened his tournament with a 16-0 shutout of Somerset’s Austin Dewitt in 1:47 of wrestling in the second round. He then collected a 15-0 win over Lindrose in 2:27 to reach the consolation finals.

Weaver now has six technical falls on the season, which is just one ahead of Shunk.

Gable, Cunningham and State College’s Pierson Manville and James Whitbred were all able to earn their second technical fall this week.

Fastest falls and major decisions

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

Long made it to where Bellefonte holds down the three fastest times to go along with teammates Jack McHail and Cameron Garcia, first and second, respectively. Long stuck Bellwood-Antis’ Juliette Cuevas in 20 seconds of their second round match.

Pavlechko’s pin of Cumberland Valley’s William Barrett in 28 seconds is the ninth fastest time.

Gable was able to distant himself a little in the major decision category. He beat Weaver, 13-3, in the semifinals, which gave him his fourth major decision.

There are a pile of wrestlers that have two major decisions looking to chase him down. Hess, Shunk, Fleck and P-O’s Ace Foster joined that pack chasing Gable this week.

Boys’ Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest Falls

Technical Falls

Major Decisions

Girls’ Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest Falls

Nate Cobler

Centre Daily Times

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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.