From the Centre Daily Times of State College, Pennsylvania http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/sports/10488990.htm
Posted on Fri, Dec. 24, 2004
Bald Eagle Area leaves no doubt against shorthanded Clearfield
By Ron Bracken
[email protected]
WINGATE – You can speculate all you want about how different the score of the Bald Eagle Area-Clearfield dual meet might have been Thursday night had the Bisons not been without four starters.
That’s what might have been.
What was blinked out from the scoreboard as the gym emptied: BEA 52, Clearfield 18.
Few could argue that the meet would have been more competitive had the Bisons had Brad Pataky, Lucas Aughenbaugh, Scott Hall and Adam Caldwell in the lineup.
But even fewer could argue with the final score in this early-season battle for Central Wrestling Conference supremacy.
After giving up a first-period fall to Clearfield’s Kyle Keane at 145 pounds to start the meet, BEA won the next six bouts, three with first-period falls, another by technical fall and another by major decision to seize control at 33-6.
“I would have liked for Clearfield to have had a full lineup so we could see where we stand, “said BEA coach Skip Pighetti. “Clearfield’s a powerhouse team. We could see them again in the state duals. And they’ll be at the regionals. I’d like for our guys to wrestle those kids (who were out).
“But this was a win and I’ll always take a win. These kids worked hard for it.”
BEA began its six-bout roll at 152, where David Fisher majored Bill Zimmerman 11-2, grabbing the early lead with a four-point move off his feet and never looking back.
At 189, Seth Nyman needed only 34 seconds to pin Jacob Riglin and Clearfield forfeited to Travis Stem at 215, moving Devin Yastro up to 275 to face Mike Cook, who pinned Yastro in 1:12 to make it 33-6.
“We knew, with them having those kids out of the lineup, that we had to establish control early and not let them up, “Pighetti said.
“We’re raw from 160 on up, “said Bisons coach Jeff Aveni. “We had some trouble with our conditioning but that’s partly because a couple of kids are pulling weight to fill in spots. That will happen the first or second time down.
“There were times tonight where I thought we were fine and there were times where we weren’t. I wasn’t pleased with the the way we wrestled. We got beat on every whistle. But we’ll get better as the season goes along. We’ll be a better team in March. We’re looking forward to meeting some of these guys at regionals.”
Clearfield ace Matt Kyler stopped the BEA blitz at 103 when he pinned Zane Gardner in 1:08 but the Eagles matched that with a fall from Jake Shirk in 1:21 at 112 to make it 39-12.
That ended the pinfest.
At 119, BEA’s Caleb Hoffman topped Richie Queen 8-1, breaking the bout open with a four-point near fall early in the second period while at 125 Clearfield’s Chris Bloom made a first-period takedown stand up for a 2-1 win over Bryant Clontz at 125.
In what figured to be the feature bout of the night, BEA freshman Quentin Wright hung a 13-4 major decision on Tom Barger. After giving up the initial takedown Wright escaped and took Barger down in the final 10 seconds of the period for a 3-2 lead. Barger reversed to start the second period, making it 4-3, but Wright reversed Barger to his back to take an 8-4 lead after two periods. In the third period, Wright added another reversal and three-point near fall for the win.
“Quentin keeps it close, “Pighetti said. “He hits some of that crazy stuff that I never did. You can’t coach that stuff. He has great mat sense.”
The teams split the final two bouts as Clearfield’s Shadoe Bauman rode out Shawn Switzer in the 30-second tiebreaker for a 7-6 win at 135 while Mike Granite made his season debut for BEA by pinning Craig Hooven at the 3:27 mark, giving BEA five falls in the meet.
“From the Beast (tournament) to here we’ve had an awful lot of falls, “Pighetti noted. “The quicker you can get off the mat the better it is. I’ve been saying over and over that you can crush a team’s spirit with those first-period falls.”
BEA will return to action next week when it competes in the Manheim Tournament Wednesday and Thursday.
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