An early Christmas gift
To save you a trip to the newspaper box, here is the story in Saturday's Observer-Reporter on Friday night's Canon-McMillan-Connellsville wrestling match.
Merry Christmas.
CANONSBURG - You know it's been a good month when your team has battled through the heart of Washington County wrestling and lived to talk about it in glowing terms.
That's what Connellsville accomplished in the early part of this season, stopping Canon-McMillan Friday night in the Big Macs' gym, 30-25, in a non-section matchup of Class AAA powers.
That victory comes nearly three weeks after the Falcons, defending PIAA team champions, handed Trinity a 46-17 loss in a season-opening road match Dec. 3.
"We lost the close ones and in big matches like these, you can't afford to lose the close ones," said Canon-McMillan head coach Chris Mary. "Our kids in the upperweights wrestled a little tentative."
The turning point for the 5-0 Falcons came in the middle and upper weights, where they chalked up three victories by a combined four points and took seven out of nine bouts from 135 through heavyweight.
The ones that hurt Canon-McMillan most came at 171, 215 and heavyweight. Zach Benzio won the 171-pound bout 2-1 in overtime when C-M's Jurdan Maier was hit for his second stalling call of the match.
Josh Brewer captured the 215-pound bout against Canon-Mac's Ron Totterdale by rideout, 2-1. And Justin Haines stopped the Big Macs' A.J. Williams 3-1 on a takedown with 20 seconds remaining.
Those nine team points were critical.
"It's been a fun month," said Connellsville head coach Tom Dolde Jr. "We have a lot of young guys. It's a sophomore-dominated team with about 30. And it's a hard-working group. I started with 54 and then we got down to 48, so I thought I'd work them and see how many would stay. I just pounded them in practice and they all came back."
The Big Macs (3-3) began the match with a bang, when 130-pounder Justin O'Brien pinned Connellsville's Chris Crutchman in 1:20 but Connellsville ran off the next four wins, including a forfeit to defending state champion Ashtin Primus at 145.
One of the Falcons' unexpected wins came next, when Andy Snyder scored nine points in the third period for a 10-3 victory over Mike Eberly at 152.
"(Snyder) has never beaten Eberly before," said Dolde. "That was big for us."
Canon-McMillan trailed by as many as 12 points twice but still had a chance in the final four bouts. The Big Macs cut the deficit to 27-22 after Ron Schram (103) and Colin Johnston (112) each won by technical fall. But Kody Pujia put it out of reach for the Falcons with a 5-1 decision at 119.
"We got great efforts at 103 and 112," said Mary. "They gave the extra effort and really worked hard for the falls.
"We just need to improve on the areas where we got beat tonight."
Merry Christmas.
CANONSBURG - You know it's been a good month when your team has battled through the heart of Washington County wrestling and lived to talk about it in glowing terms.
That's what Connellsville accomplished in the early part of this season, stopping Canon-McMillan Friday night in the Big Macs' gym, 30-25, in a non-section matchup of Class AAA powers.
That victory comes nearly three weeks after the Falcons, defending PIAA team champions, handed Trinity a 46-17 loss in a season-opening road match Dec. 3.
"We lost the close ones and in big matches like these, you can't afford to lose the close ones," said Canon-McMillan head coach Chris Mary. "Our kids in the upperweights wrestled a little tentative."
The turning point for the 5-0 Falcons came in the middle and upper weights, where they chalked up three victories by a combined four points and took seven out of nine bouts from 135 through heavyweight.
The ones that hurt Canon-McMillan most came at 171, 215 and heavyweight. Zach Benzio won the 171-pound bout 2-1 in overtime when C-M's Jurdan Maier was hit for his second stalling call of the match.
Josh Brewer captured the 215-pound bout against Canon-Mac's Ron Totterdale by rideout, 2-1. And Justin Haines stopped the Big Macs' A.J. Williams 3-1 on a takedown with 20 seconds remaining.
Those nine team points were critical.
"It's been a fun month," said Connellsville head coach Tom Dolde Jr. "We have a lot of young guys. It's a sophomore-dominated team with about 30. And it's a hard-working group. I started with 54 and then we got down to 48, so I thought I'd work them and see how many would stay. I just pounded them in practice and they all came back."
The Big Macs (3-3) began the match with a bang, when 130-pounder Justin O'Brien pinned Connellsville's Chris Crutchman in 1:20 but Connellsville ran off the next four wins, including a forfeit to defending state champion Ashtin Primus at 145.
One of the Falcons' unexpected wins came next, when Andy Snyder scored nine points in the third period for a 10-3 victory over Mike Eberly at 152.
"(Snyder) has never beaten Eberly before," said Dolde. "That was big for us."
Canon-McMillan trailed by as many as 12 points twice but still had a chance in the final four bouts. The Big Macs cut the deficit to 27-22 after Ron Schram (103) and Colin Johnston (112) each won by technical fall. But Kody Pujia put it out of reach for the Falcons with a 5-1 decision at 119.
"We got great efforts at 103 and 112," said Mary. "They gave the extra effort and really worked hard for the falls.
"We just need to improve on the areas where we got beat tonight."
posted by Joe Tuscano at
12:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home