While wrestling is said to be a dying sport, you wouldn’t believe it from what seems to be an ever-increasing amount of schools that are in the AA classification for wrestling. As a result, for the first time since the 1988-89 wrestling season, the 25 Double-A schools have been split into two sectional tournaments. Tyrone and Bellwood-Antis are among 12 teams aligned in the Eastern Sectional which is being held at Tyrone Area High School this weekend.
Tyrone has nine wrestlers in today’s semifinals which begin at 12:30 p.m., and Bellwood-Antis has two.
A partial pigtail round and a full quarterfinal round were wrestled on Friday evening. The first consolation round will be wrestled this morning at 9 a.m., with the consolation quarterfinals to follow at 11:30 a.m.. The Consolation semifinals (2:30 p.m. will follow the championship semifinals. In the evening wrestling will conclude with consolation finals for third and fifth places at 6 p.m. and the championship finals will go at 7:30 p.m. The top five wrestlers in each weight class will advance to the District Tournament also at Tyrone on Feb. 25-26.
Anthony Romano (103), T. J. Albright (112), Robert Waite (119), David Miller (135), Jacob Smerekar (145), Justin Schopp (152), Brice Mertiff (160), Heath Walk (171) and Terry Tate (275) wrestled their way into today’s semifinals for the Eagles, while Brandon Beech (130) and Dwayne Cherry (189) will go in the semis for the Blue Devils.
Romano (14-8), the third seed, pinned Josh Manning of Penns Valley, in 1:37. Romano, who majored Manning 14-2 in the dual meet, will face second seeded junior Kelly Sell (25-6) of Claysburg-Kimmel, in the semifinals. Albright (30-6), the top seed, who won his 30th match of the yea by decking Philip Brown of Huntingdon, in just 0:33, will meet Claysburg-Kimmel freshman Shane Burkett (21-11) in the semifinals. Albright has now pinned Brown three times this season. Robert Waite (23-6), a third seed majored Mount Union freshman Keith Ryan 11-2. Waite will meet Moshannon Valley sophomore Ryan Jacoby (21-2) in the semis. Waite lost by fall to Ryan in the Zeigler tournament, then came back to hammer the Trojan ninth grader 15-2 in the dual meet.
Second seeded David Miller (35-4) won by a 14-4 major decision over Greg Myers of Penns Valley, in the quarterfinals and will wrestle Claysburg junior third seed Aaron Dorobo (24-6). Jacob Smerekar (18-15) won a pair of bouts on Friday getting pins in both in nearly identical times. Jake pinned Derrick Johnson of Juniata Valley, in the pigtail round in 1:16, then decked fourth seed Ron Queen of Moshannon Valley, in 1:18. In the semifinals, Smerekar will meet top seeded junior David Sunderland (27-0) of Southern Huntingdon. Justin Schopp (15-18) edged Matt Orndorf of Penns Valley, 11-9 in a quarterfinal match and will face top seeded senior Chris Banks (21-10) of Huntingdon, in the semifinals. Schopp dropped a 5-2 decision to Banks in the dual meet.
Top seed Brice Mertiff had a quick and easy time in his first return to the mat since being injured in the Bald Eagle Area dual on Feb. 3, pinning Bellwood-Antis sophomore Garett Wyland in 0:21 in the quarters. Brice will wrestle Southern Huntingdon junior Scott Everhart (18-11) in the semi at 160. Mertiff took only 0:33 to pin Everhart in the Zeigler Tournament. Mertiff (28-6) now has 26 pins, including 22 in the first period and 12 in less than one minute. Walk, top seed at 171, pinned Mike Snyder of Claysburg-Kimmel, in 3:22 in a quarterfinal match. Walk (23-7), who also just recently returned to the mat after a knee injury, will meet fourth seed Dallas Runk (10-12) of Huntingdon, in the semifinal round. Walk pinned Runk during the dual meet. Terry Tate, top ranked by most polls in the state, continued undefeated with a quick pin over Mount Union’s Mike Wilson in 0:42. Tate (35-0) will wrestle Alan Collins (12-4) of Glendale in the semifinals. Collins, a two-time Southwestern Regional qualifier, wrestled at 171 for most of the year, before suffering an injury. When he returned he didn’t want to eliminate two of his friends at 189 and 215, so he decided he was going to wrestle at 275. In the quarterfinals, he decisioned much bigger Joe Gongloff of Huntingdon 7-2 to earn a berth against the Tyrone senior in the semis.
“Tomorrow’s semifinals is a big round,” said Tyrone coach Blair Packer. “Of course you rely on those kids in the consolations to come back. I think teams that put good efforts in the consolations are usually teams that do well in a tournament like this. Getting as many of our kids into the finals as we can will be a big thing. They get 10 points automatically just to move into the finals. That will prove to be who will win this tournament
Bellwood-Antis junior Brandon Beech (16-13) won a 6-2 decision over Josh Hunter of Tyrone, in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, Brandon will meet top seeded junior Donny Clark (29-1) of West Branch. In last Saturday’s double dual, Beech was pinned by Clark. Dwayne Cherry (15-7) pinned Miles Lamborn of Central for the third time this season, in 5:05, in a quarterfinal bout. In the quarterfinals at 189, Cherry will wrestle top seeded junior Kane Bjalme (19-9) of Penns Valley. In the dual meet, Bjalme edged Cherry 3-0.
“We picked up some bonus points. We got some falls in the first round,” said Bellwood-Antis coach Ron Wilson. “I thought our kids wrestled pretty well over all. They just wrestled a bunch of very good kids, this last round. But they went out there and gave it their all. We picked up a couple wins, we have a couple guys wresting in the semifinals. We are pleased with the effort given by our kids. We have a bunch of guys who are still left in the wrestlebacks, that got us points in the first round. Hopefully we can pick up a couple wins tomorrow morning and be in a position where we can pick up a couple places going to the districts.
In the consolation brackets for Tyrone, Shayne Tate (1-1 at 125), Josh Hunter (0-1 at 130), Sam McCloskey (0-1) at 140), James Updike (0-1 at 189) and Donnie Conrad (0-1 at 215) will strive to place in the top five to earn a place in next weekend’s district tournament. Bellwood-Antis hopefuls in the consolation rounds are Donnie Partner (0-1 at 103), Ronnie Wilson (1-1 at 135), Josh Ervine (0-1 at 140), Dustin Harris (0-1 at 145), Ron Colyer (1-1 at 152) and Garett Wyland (1-1 at 160) are still fighting for a place in the districts
