It was a beast of a tournament, even for some of Pennsylvania\u2019s top high school wrestlers.
\nThirty-four Pennsylvania wrestlers placed in the rugged Beast of the East tournament last weekend at the University of Delaware, but it was not a pleasant weekend for returning PIAA champions.
\nThree Pennsylvania state champions were beaten in the finals of the 79-team tournament, while a fourth placed only seventh in his weight class.
\nColeman Scott of Waynesburg and Zac Fryling of North Penn, both PIAA champions last year, and Jeff Ecklof of Northampton, a state champion in 2001 and a two-time runner-up, all lost in the finals of one of the nation\u2019s best tournaments.
\nScott was beaten 4-2 in overtime by Troy Nickerson of Chenango Forks, N.Y., himself a state champion at 112 pounds. Scott was last season\u2019s PIAA Class AAA champion at 103.
\nFryling, the defending Class AAA 152-pound champion, was beaten 9-1 by Blair Academy\u2019s Mark Perry, a defending national prep school champion. Perry was named the tournament\u2019s outstanding wrestler.
\nEcklof, who won the 125-pound PIAA championship in 2001, lost 4-2 to Blair Academy\u2019s Ryan Davis, also a national prep champion. Blair, ranked No. 1 nationally by the major ranking services, won the team championship.
\nAnother returning PIAA champion, Waynesburg\u2019s Drew Headlee, finished seventh at 119 pounds. Headlee was a PIAA 112-pound champion last season.
\nOnly one Pennsylvania wrestler, Oxford\u2019s Josh Weitzel, won a championship. Weitzel, a Michigan recruit, defeated Ryan Goodman of Absegami, N.J., 10-6 at 171 pounds.
\nTOP 50: PIAA Class AAAA champion Parkland was Pennsylvania\u2019s top-ranked team in the final Top 50 high school football rankings by Student Sports Inc., whose national rankings date to the 1970s.
\nParkland was No. 13, with PIAA Class AAAA runner-up Woodland Hills coming in 24th and St. Joseph\u2019s Prep of Philadelphia ranking 48th, one spot ahead of West Virginia champion Morgantown.
\nPULLS COMMITMENT: Jason Evans, a Georgia high school running back star, has changed his mind and committed to Stanford after earlier giving an oral commitment to Penn State.
\nPenn State, however, still has a commitment from Parkland High School star Austin Scott, who broke the state single-season rushing record for the PIAA Class AAAA champions. Scott was chosen as the Pennsylvania Big School player of the year.
\nPITT RECRUITS: Pitt recently got football recruiting commitments from highly recruited linebacker H.B. Blades from Plantation High School in Florida; punter Adam Graessle of Coffman High School in Ohio; defensive back Mike Phillips of Warren Harding High School in Ohio; Derron Thomas, a linebacker from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Md.; Joe Flacco, a quarterback from Audubon, N.J.; and Small School all-state running back Windell Brown of Duquesne.
\nBlades is considered a major catch. The son of former NFL defensive back Bennie Blades, he was listed as a Top 10 linebacker by some recruiting services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a beast of a tournament, even for some of Pennsylvania\u2019s top high school wrestlers. Thirty-four Pennsylvania wrestlers placed in the rugged Beast of the East tournament last weekend at the University of Delaware, but it was not a pleasant weekend for returning PIAA champions. Three Pennsylvania state champions were beaten in the finals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}