A pair of West Hills athletes will look to defend their crowns Saturday at the WPIAL Girls Wrestling Championships at Mt. Lebanon High School.
Montour’s Kristen Walzer, who captured the 100-pound weight class title as a junior last year, will be back for more Saturday.
She’ll be joined by Moon Area junior Haley Smarsh, a two-time defending WPIAL champion who won the 130-pound division last year.
Both are seeded No. 1 in their respective weight classes.
Walzer brings a record of 24-10 into Saturday’s competition, which gets underway at 9 a.m., while Smarsh has lost just three times in 33 outings.
While the girls are battling at Mt. Lebanon Saturday, the boys will take to the mats a day earlier.
The Class 3A tournament, which features 10 wrestlers from Moon – including top seed Cael Yanek — and four from Montour, will take place at Canon-McMillan. The Class 2A tournament, which features one West Hills wrestler — Dom Cisnero Torres of Carlynton — will be held at Chartiers Valley High School.
Competition will begin at 5 p.m. Friday at both boys tournaments and resume at 10 a.m. Saturday.
In girls competition, the top five or six finishers from each weight class Saturday will compete at the PIAA West Regional at Mt. Lebanon High School on Feb. 28, with the top four wrestlers from each weight class advancing to the PIAA Individual Championships.
In Class 3A boys, the top seven wrestlers from each weight class Saturday will compete at the PIAA Class 3A West Regional at Canon-McMillan High School on Feb. 27-28, with the top five wrestlers from each weight class advancing to the PIAA Individual Championships.
In Class 2A boys, the unseeded Cisnero Torres needs to finish among the top eight in the 189-pound weight class Saturday to advance to the PIAA Class 2A Southwest Regional at Altoona High School on Feb. 27-28. The top seven finishers at the Southwest Regional move on to the PIAA Individual Championships.
Yanek is the lone top seed among West Hills boys, as he’s No. 1 at 133 pounds. The senior has compiled a 34-6 record this season, including a title at last week’s Southern Section meet. Last year, Yanek placed fourth at the WPIAL meet.
Teammate Liam Costa, who won last week’s section title at 172, is the No. 2 seed in his class. Costa, who brings a 38-6 mark into this weekend’s action, finished seventh at last year’s WPIAL tournament as a sophomore.
Moon junior Bryce Thomas, who finished sixth last year at 107, is seeded No. 4 this year with a 30-10 record. Tigers senior Michael Olszewski, a sixth-place finisher a year ago, is seeded No. 5 at 189 with a 37-5 record.
At 145, Montour’s Jacob Chacon is seeded No. 5. Chacon is 37-3 on the season.
Rook Smith of Montour is the West Hills’ final seeded wrestler, as he checks in at No. 7 at 152. Smith is 37-3 and finished first at last weekend’s Southern Section meet. He was the lone West Hills wrestler to medal at last year’s PIAA meet when he placed eighth.
Unseeded West Hills wrestlers who will compete this weekend are Moon’s Hayden Seymour (114), Karsten Kirchner (121), Landon Lower (127), Zack Regotti (145), Max Gould (160) and Khalil Razipour (215) and Montour’s Damon Nelson (121) and Jacob Halbedl (285).
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