Eight West Hills area wrestlers placed among the top seven in their respective weight classes at the WPIAL Boys Championships over the weekend and earned berths in the PIAA Regionals, which will take place Feb. 28-March 1.
Braiden Sudor and Henry Barbisch, Bishop Canevin students who wrestle for Carlynton under a co-op arrangement, both reached the finals Saturday but fell short there and took home silver medals.
Both will move on to the Class 2A PIAA Southwest Regional at Altoona High School along with teammate Jermell Lindsey.
Four Moon Area competitors – Cael Yanek, Michael Olszewski, Bryce Thomas and Liam Costa — locked up spots in the Class 3A PIAA West Regional, which will be held at Canon-McMillan High School.
Rook Smith of Montour also earned a berth in the Class 3A PIAA West Regional by placing fourth at 160 pounds.
Sudor, seeded sixth at 215, won three straight matches to reach the finals, where he lost by technical fall, 19-2 at 5 minutes, 26 seconds, to top seed Braedon Welsh of Fort Cherry.
Sudor posted a 5-2 decision over No. 2 seed Kolton Carlson in the semifinals to reach the championship match. Earlier, Sudor defeated No. 3 seed Brennan Breisinger of Quaker Valley, 4-2, in the quarterfinals.
Barbisch, seeded No. 2 at 285, also won three straight matches to gain the finals, where he lost a 10-4 decision to top seed Colin Whyte of West Greene.
Lindsey, seeded No. 8 at 172, won his first match but lost by fall in the quarterfinals to No. 1 seed Jackson Angelo. Lindsey split a pair of consolation round matches but rebounded to decision Ethan Miller of Greensburg Salem, 9-3, in the battle for seventh place.
Moon’s Yanek, the No. 5 seed at 133, won two straight matches before getting pinned by top seed Luke Willochell of Latrobe at 1:40 in the semifinals. Yanek won his first consolation semifinal match before falling 4-3 to Collier Hartman of Canon-McMillan in the third-place match.
Thomas and Olszewski both finished sixth. Thomas, seeded fifth at 107, won his opening-round match and then lost in the quarterfinals and had to battle through the consolation bracket to ultimately wrestle for fifth place, where he lost to Michael Johnson of West Allegheny.
Olszewski, the eighth seed at 172, followed a similar path and wound up losing 12-0 to Kaleb Kinzey of Armstrong in the fifth-place match.
Costa, the No. 3 seed at 160, also lost in the quarterfinals and came back to wrestle for seventh place, where he defeated Ethan Cartwright of Franklin Regional, 7-1 to earn a spot in the regional tournament.
Montour’s Smith, the No. 6 seed, won his first two matches before losing 14-2 to No. 2 seed Brayden White of Thomas Jefferson in the semifinals. Smith won his consolation semifinal match before losing 4-1 to No. 5 seed Brock Evans in the third-place match.
Other area wrestlers who competed over the weekend were Ethan Moldovan (133) and Dom Cisnero-Torres (189) of Carlynton, Jacob Chacon (139) and Jacob Halbedl (285) of Montour and Moon’s Karsten Kirchner (114), Elijah Thomas (145), Tavis Lindsay (152), Owen Bereznay (189) and Khalil Razipour (215).
Montour coach Zac Tournay said he thought his three wrestlers competed well.
“There are a lot of tough matches at this stage of the postseason,” he said. “All three wrestlers who competed this weekend will be back next season – Jacob Chacon and Rook Smith are juniors and Jacob Halbedl is a sophomore.”
Moon coach Mike Muraco said his four wrestlers who finished among the top seven all performed admirably. “The goal is always to do as well as we can and place high, but at this point, moving on to the next round is the top goal,” he said.
Muraco said Yanek’s quarterfinal 8-6 decision over Chase Smith of Franklin Regional was particularly satisfying, given that Smith had beaten Yanek earlier in the season.
Muraco said Costa wasn’t quite a full strength but still managed to advance with his seventh-place finish. Bryce Thomas, he said, wrestled well all weekend, as did Olszewski, who finished higher than his seed position. “He had a great tournament,” Muraco said of Olszewski.
Carlynton coach Ed White said he was “very pleased” with the way his wrestlers competed.
“It was a great weekend for our seniors to qualify for the Southwest Regional Tournament,” he said of Barbisch, Lindsey and Sudor. “I thought as a whole we wrestled tough all weekend. Ethan Moldovan and Dom Cisnero Torres missed qualifying by one match. Both will be back next year.”
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