A trio of West Hills wrestlers struck gold Saturday at the WPIAL Class 3A Southern Section meet, held at South Fayette High School.
Cael Yanek and Liam Costa, both from Moon Area, and Montour’s Jacob Chacon finished atop their respective weight classes. Yanek competed at 133 pounds, Costa at 172 and Chacon at 145.
All three were seeded No. 1 in their weight classes.
The top six finishers in each weight class will advance to the WPIAL Championships, which will take place Feb. 20-21 at Canon-McMillan High School.
Moon had a school-record 10 wrestlers qualify for next weekend’s WPIAL meet while four Montour wrestlers will move on.
In the Class 2A North sectional, held at Keystone Oaks, Carlynton’s Dom Cisnero Torres finished fourth at 189 and will move on to the Class 2A tournament next weekend at Chartiers Valley High School.
Moon had eight other WPIAL Tournament qualifiers in addition to Yanek and Costa: Bryce Thomas at 107 pounds, Hayden Seymour (114), Karsten Kirchner (121), Landon Lower (127), Michael Olszewski (189), Khalil Razipour (215), Zachary Regotti (145) and Maximus Gould (160).
Advancing from Montour, in addition to Chacon and Smith, were Damon Nelson (121) and Jacob Halbedl (285).
Moon coach Mike Muraco was thrilled with his team’s effort Saturday.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “We are in a tough section with some real quality teams. It is a great accomplishment to have 10 qualify for the WPIAL tournament and have two champs.”
Yanek won all three of his matches and nailed down the title at 133 by decisioning Jon Emma of Canon-McMillan 9-6 after the second tiebreaker session in their final match. Costa also went 3-0, winning his crown at 172 by decisioning Behr Bruckner of Trinity, 5-0.
For Montour, Chacon went 3-0 and decisioned Ian Bucheli of Bethel Park, 11-8, in the 145 final.
Montour’s Rook Smith also reached the championship finals but wound up second after forfeiting to Logan Slovick of West Allegheny at 152.
Smith, who was seeded No. 1 and finished 2-1 Saturday, dislocated one of his fingers during his semifinal victory and didn’t wrestle in his finals match, Montour coach Zac Tournay said.
For Moon, three wrestlers finished third in Thomas, Kirchner and Olszewski while Seymour, Lower and Razipour finished fourth. Regotti placed fifth and Gould finished sixth.
Olszewski won his 100th career match when he defeated Chartiers Valley’s Musabek Sadyrbekov in the match for third place. Yanek and Costa also are in the career 100-win club for Moon.
For Montour, Halbedl placed fourth and Nelson was sixth.
In the Class 2A section tournament, Cisnero Torres won his opening match but lost in the semifinals. He came back to win in the consolation semifinals but lost in the third-place match.
Carlynton’s Thomas Gargis won his first match before losing in the quarterfinals at 152. Gargis came back to win in the second consolation round but lost in the third consolation round.
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