Here are Centre County high school wrestling highlights, leaderboards through Feb. 4

The high school wrestling season has five weeks left.

This week saw four of Centre County’s five boys teams compete in the District 6 dual championships.

Bald Eagle Area, Penns Valley and Philipsburg-Osceola made the Class 2A playoffs as State College took part in the Class 3A tournament.

The Eagles, Rams and Little Lions were able to make the semifinals. The Mounties came up one match short.

Tuesday was the first round and quarterfinals for Class 2A. Penns Valley defeated Moshanon Valley (60-15, first round) and Mount Union (45-18, quarterfinals). BEA took care of Juniata, 58-6, in the quarterfinals. P-O upset No. 6 Forest Hills (39-24, first round), but fell to Huntingdon (34-27, quarterfinals).

On Saturday, the Eagles made the district finals after topping the Rams, 43-18. They lost to Bishop McCort, 58-15, but rebounded to beat the Bearcats, 37-30, to remain eligible for the PIAA dual championships.

Penns Valley lost to Huntingdon, 35-33, in the consolation finals.

State College competed on Saturday too, at Central Mountain High School. The Little Lions lost to the host Wildcats, 50-23, in the semifinals to end the dual meet portion of their season.

The Mounties, which honored long time coach Dave Caslow, rebounded from the district quarterfinals loss to crush cross-town rival West Branch, 61-9, on Friday.

Even though it didn’t make the dual postseason, Bellefonte still had a pair of duals. The Red Raiders fell to Clearfield (44-20, Tuesday), but came home winners from Central (55-15, Friday).

The P-O girls squad hosted their first tournament on Saturday with State College also participating. There was no team score kept, but all nine county wrestlers that competed did place — no lower than fifth.

Let’s take a look at the leaderboards:

Boys

Wins

The most wins that could be collected this week would be four from BEA and Penns Valley wrestlers.

Tanner Guenot, Caden Judice and Caleb Close were those four-match winners for the Eagles. Ty Watson was the lone four-bout winner for the Rams.

Guenot, Judice and Watson each recorded bonus points in their four wins.

Close, along with Lucas Fye, leads BEA with 30 wins a piece. They got that 30th victory against Huntingdon and by a pin.

Fye started the dual by flattening the Bearcats’ Chris Gibson in 53 seconds. Close stuck Landon Erdman in 3:02.

The duo became the fifth and sixth county wrestlers to get to 30 victories on the season.

Watson’s 27 wins leads Penns Valley for the season.

Centre County wrestling fans will want to keep an eye on State College’s Nick Pavlechko, who is now only two wins away from getting 100. He should accomplish that feat during the District 6 Class 3A tournament on Feb. 17 in Altoona.

Here’s who got their 30th win this week:

Bellefonte: Noah Weaver (31 wins) recorded a 15-0 technical fall on Clearfield’s Colton Bumbarger on Tuesday; Wyatt Long (31) pinned the Bison’s Xavier Lutz in 1:12.

Here’s who got their 20th win this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Guenot (23 wins) pinned Juniata’s Anthony Maradiga in 2:19; Dawson Lomison (21) topped Penns Valley’s Tripp Watson, 4-2; Gage Gardner (20) sneaked by the Rams’ Landon Hess, 2-1

Penns Valley: Jack Darlington (20) pinned Huntingdon’s Gavin Bilich in 2:27

Philipsburg-Osceola: Colton Chapman (21) edged Forest Hills’ Nick Noon, 5-3; Connor Guenot (21) pinned Huntingdon’s Deegan Brown in 3:36

Here’s who got their 10th win this week:

Penns Valley: Brayden Lisowski (11 wins) pinned Mount Union’s Micah Atherton in 48 seconds; Erik Carlile (10) received a forfeit against Huntingdon

Pins

There is a new leader at the top.

Close has surpassed Pavlechko, who has led the county for most of the year.

The American commit had a trio of pins this week to get to 20 on the year. He is now one ahead of Pavlechko and Bellefonte’s Wyatt Long, who got to 19 this week with a pair of falls.

Ty Watson (18 pins) along with Close’s teammates Guenot (11) and Mason Reese (15) also collected three falls a piece this week.

Watson’s quickest was in 1:18 of Huntingdon’s Dominick Peruso. It was the future Penn State wrestler’s 80th career pin as he continues to build the program record he set.

Here’s who got their 10th pin this week:

Bald Eagle Area: Guenot (11 pins) stuck Penns Valley’s Conner Myers in 3:56; Shawn Knepp (10) flattened the Rams’ Robert Martin in 3:21; Connor Maney (10) puts Penns Valley’s Zach Rummel on his back in 2:57

Bellefonte: Jack McHail (10) took care of Central’s Blair Miller in 3:54

Major decisions

Judice earned his fifth major decision this week when he shut out Carlile, 10-0, in the semifinals.

The Eagles’ wrestler is tied for second in the county with Fye and P-O’s Nate Fleck. They are all chasing Fleck’s teammate Marcus Gable, who has six.

Bellefonte’s Ezra Swisher added another major decision this week to get to four. He beat Central’s Isaac Smith, 9-0.

Lomison earned his second major decision when he shut out Huntingdon’s Liam Simpson.

The Red Raiders’ Jackson Long and the Mounties’ Haydn Kephart each tallied their first major decision this week.

Technical falls & fastest falls

Another week has come and gone, and Bellefonte’s Noah Weaver added more technical falls.

The senior had a pair to get to 12 this year. He outscored his opponents, 31-0.

Judice (4 techs), State College’s James Whitbred (3) and BEA’s Gavin Bennett (1) were the only other county wrestlers to secure a technical fall this week.

The Mounties’ Caleb Hummel and Fye added two new times to the fastest falls list. The times they added were the first and second times.

Hummel is the new leader as he stuck West Branch’s Holly Schnarrs in five seconds. Being that it is so late in the year, this may be the winning time for the year.

Fye barely broke a sweat when he took care of Juniata’s Cody Nipple in 11 seconds.

Girls

Wins

As previously mentioned, Centre County had nine wrestlers combined from P-O and State College compete in the first Lady Mountie Invite on Saturday.

The Lady Mounties’ Isabella DuVall and Charli Hunt came away with titles. They each won two bouts to get that crown.

DuVall now has 15 wins, which is tied with the Lady Eagles’ Grace Crestani and Eden Eveleth for the county lead.

Hunt is up to 12 victories, which is tied with State College’s Anna Lackey, who finished third.

P-O’s Daisy Glessner and Halee Grubb were also finalists. Teammate Annabella Hunt had the most wins this week with three as she finished third. Hunt has nine on the year.

Other placewinners for the Lady Mounties were Marleana DuVall (fourth) and Veda Kephart (third).

State College’s Christine Armstrong finished fifth.

Pins

Annabella Hunt had the most pins this week at three to get to six for the season.

She opened her tournament by pinning Sugar Valley Rural Charter School’s Emma Downing in 3:44 of the quarterfinals. Hunt used back-to-back falls to secure her third-place finish.

Charli Hunt had a pair of pins to become the third county wrestler to get to 10 on the year. Her 10th pin was in 48 seconds when she stuck Curwensville’s Gabrielle Bambarger in the finals.

Isabella DuVall and Lackey each had a pin a piece this week to get to nine.

Kephart had her first pin of the year, which came in the consolation finals for her third-place finish.

Technical falls & fastest falls

Isabella DuVall became the second county wrestler to record a technical fall to join her teammate Charli Hunt.

DuVall racked up a 17-1 win over Sugar Valley Rural Charter School’s Evie Andrus in 2:15 of their semifinals match.

Grubb added a new time to the fastest falls list this week when she flattened Northern Bedford’s Harlee Eltman in 39 seconds of their semifinals match.

Boys’ Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest falls

Technical falls

Major decisions

Girls’ Leaders

Wins

Pins

Fastest falls

Technical falls

This story was originally published February 4, 2024 at 11:16 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.