With three champions, four runners-up and 12 additional state medalists in Class 2A, the WPIAL had a strong showing at last weekend’s PIAA individual wrestling championships.
Expect to see a lot more where that came from next year.
Out of the WPIAL’s 19 state medalists in Class 2A, 10 will be returning next season, including two PIAA champions — Mount Pleasant freshman Dayton Pitzer and Frazier junior Thayne Lawrence.
Pitzer and Lawrence will both be heavy favorites to defend their titles after bulldozing the competition in Hershey last weekend. Pitzer outscored his opponents, 28-3, and Lawrence outscored his, 36-6, on his way to his second-consecutive state championship.
Lawrence said he has already set his sights on becoming the 61st three-time state champion in Pennsylvania history, while Pitzer’s groundbreaking freshman season has some believing he can become the 14th four-time PIAA champion. After all, Pitzer already made history this season by becoming the WPIAL’s first freshman to win a state title above 152 pounds.
But Pitzer and Lawrence aren’t the only wrestlers to watch out for next season. The WPIAL will have plenty of top contenders for state titles among the returning medalists, especially in the lower weight classes.
South Park sophomore Joey Fischer entered the PIAA tournament as the WPIAL’s only undefeated wrestler in Class 2A, but left the Giant Center with a fourth-place medal after suffering his first two losses of the season. Still, there’s no reason not to like Fischer’s chances to reach the top of the podium next year.
Fischer’s first loss came via 3-1 decision in the semifinals to eventual state champion Sheldon Seymour of Troy, and he lost a 2-1 decision in the third-place match to last year’s state champion, Gary Steen of Reynolds.
At 113 pounds, Elizabeth Forward junior Ryan Michaels lost his semifinal match to Southern Columbia’s Cole Briscoe, 4-3. That was only Michaels’ second loss of the season, and he would not lose again, as he dismantled Chestnut Ridge’s Nate Holderbaum with a 14-0 major decision in the third-place match.
Burrell sophomore Ian Oswalt entered as the top seed at 120 pounds, but a 3-1 semifinal loss to eventual champion Ryan Crookham of Notre Dame Green Pond dropped him to the consolation bracket, where he finished in fifth place. And at 126 pounds, Derry Area sophomore Ty Cymmerman also lost 3-1 in the semifinals against Bishop McDevitt’s Chase Shields and finished in fourth place.
Freedom sophomore Trent Schultheis might have the easiest path of any returning medalist to his first state title after losing via 20-5 technical fall in the finals to Pope John Paul II’s Ryan Vulakh. Lucky for Schultheis and the rest of the 152-pounders in Pennsylvania, Vulakh is graduating after taking home the Outstanding Wrestler award for his performance.
At 182 pounds, Ellwood City junior Austin Walley will return to make one more run at a state title after taking home fourth place this year. But he might want to find a new weight class to avoid having to go through Pitzer, who defeated him all three times they faced off this season.
Cinderella stories
They might not have reached their ultimate goal of winning a state title, but Bentworth senior John Vargo and Quaker Valley senior Geoff Magin put together two of the most impressive runs of the tournament at 195 pounds.
Both wrestlers had to win a preliminary match just to make it to the Round of 16, as neither one placed in the top three for the weight class at the Southwest Regional. Vargo made it out with a 10-3 decision, while Magin picked up a first-period pin. But it’s what they did next that really made this tournament one they’ll always remember.
Magin won his Round of 16 match, 7-6, against the tournament’s No. 2 seed, Colin Fegley of Manahoy, who had only lost once all season and wound up finishing in third place. Meanwhile, Vargo beat Eisenhower’s Cael Black, 3-2, to move onto the quarterfinals.
But they weren’t done there. In fact, they were just getting started.
Magin raced out to a 9-3 lead against Conneaut’s Austin Kelly before pinning him midway through the second period, while Vargo pinned Dane Csencsits of Saucon Valley with seven seconds left in the second period to move into the semifinals. Magin then lost a 16-8 major decision to Kolby Franklin of St. Joseph’s Catholic, ending his bid to make it all the way from the preliminary round to the state finals.
Vargo also lost his semifinal match, but he did so in one of the most admirable performances of the entire tournament. Facing eventual state champion Gaige Garcia of Southern Columbia, who finished the season 47-0 and improved to a remarkable 114-6 for his career, Vargo battled all the way to the end and lost a razor-close 3-2 decision.
Magin and Vargo then faced off in the fifth-place match, with Vargo claiming a 7-4 decision.
First Published: March 15, 2019, 11:00 a.m.
