By T.J. Turrisi
February 5, 2010 — EDINBORO — Most everything lined up the way Saegertown wanted Thursday. Everything but the final score.
Reigning five-time D-10 champion Reynolds improved to 13-0 all-time against Saegertown with a 56-10 District 10 Class AA team dual championship semifinal win. The Raiders then went on to take their sixth straight title with a 35-18 final over Fort LeBoeuf.
Despite the lopsided loss, Saegertown coach Jim Mulligan was actually impressed with his team’s performance, a big improvement from last season’s 63-3 duals downfall.
“Things are coming along,” Mulligan said. “I’m just ecstatic. They gave 100 percent. That’s all I could ask of this team. They wrestled harder than I actually thought they would. Even when (Reynolds) got the momentum going, we didn’t give up.”
The Panthers (6-2 overall) started right where head coach Jim Mulligan wanted, at 152 pounds. But Reynolds took the early momentum with two falls, two decisions and a major decision.
Reynolds senior Luke Taylor scored a takedown, two near-fall points and a reversal for a 6-0 decision over sophomore Brock Lojek to open the bout.
“I liked the way Lojek wrestled,” Mulligan said.
Raiders’ junior Tyler Rhodes caught freshman Brock Henderson on his back for a 56-second fall at 160. Then Saegertown’s Dave Andrews and Reynolds’ Jeremy Fowler went to battle at 171.
After a scoreless first period, Fowler escaped 17 seconds into the second period for a 1-0 lead. Fowler held on with a strong leg ride in the third period for the one-point decision win and a 12-0 Reynolds team lead.
“That’s a match he can win,” said Mulligan of Andrews. “He just has to believe and get out of that (bottom) position to make it 1-1 and have a chance.”
Reynolds senior Greg Baptiste was able to use a strong double-leg takedown and a crossbody tilt to pick up a big, 10-0 major over sophomore Josh Tomiczek, who was sick all day Wednesday and Thursday, at 189.
At 215, Saegertown’s Casey Chapman became the first Panther to score a point in a match with an escape in the first period against Blake Heim.
Heim hit a lateral drop in the second period and pinned Chapman three minutes, 29 seconds in.
“We knew what Heim has,” Mulligan said. “They call him headlock Heim for a reason. We were stopping things very well for a while. We’ve just got to learn to keep the pace up for six minutes.”
Sophomore heavyweight Branden Stafford put the Saegertown fans on their feet with a big pin to give his team their first points of the match.
Stafford was able to run a half-nelson over on Drew Loutzenhiser for the fall 10 second before the second buzzer.
All that happened after Stafford regained the lead with a takedown to open the second period.
“I lost to the kid earlier in the season because I didn’t jump out to the side and run it,” Stafford said. “I had that in the back of my head and he went over. But he’s big, and I had to fight for it.”
“Stafford, for a sophomore, he doesn’t panic,” Mulligan said. “And he has a lot of confidence in himself, his team and his coaches.”
Reynolds went on to win out the rest of the matches, minus a 12-0 major decision by Tim Clark at 140 pounds.
Clark defeated Dillon Babcock with two sets of three back points, two takedowns and a switch for a reversal. Babcock’s flexibility allowed him to keep Clark from getting the fall despite being completely tied up in three tilt series.
“I wrestled that kid a lot when I was younger and he was the same way,” Clark said. “I just had to keep my head and not stress too much about not getting him over.”
At 125, Justin Mitchell wrestled a solid match against returning PIAA fourth-place winner Dylan D’Urso.
D’Urso was attempting to play a game of cat-and-mouse for the technical fall, but Mitchell was able to score a reversal and a takedown by catching the Raiders’ sophomore off-guard in the third period of a 19-8 major decision.
Stafford and Clark were also pleased with the way the Panthers battled with the heavily-favored Raiders.
“That was the best I’ve ever seen the team wrestle as a whole.,” Stafford said. “We tried harder and we had heart. Coach said, ‘Win or lose, just give 100 percent the whole time,’ and that’s what everyone did.
“It’s coming soon,” he added of his team catching up with Reynolds.
“We’re doing a lot better. We had a couple of kids quit and we got down on ourselves a little bit, but the last week of practice we were just grinding,” said Clark. “Everyone’s just been focused at practice like it’s a live match. Everyone had enough effort (tonight), and that’s all we could have asked for.”
