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Nobody Asked Me, But…Pennsylvania AAA States Edition


Flowrestling
March 13, 2008

Nobody Asked Me, But…Pennsylvania AAA States Edition

Ian McCutcheon

FloWrestling.org
“Welcome to Hershey, Pennsylvania, the SWEETEST place on Earth!” Everybody in the Keystone State knows that this is the greeting before every session at the state tournament. States, as they are affectionately known, are far and away the best weekend in Pennsylvania High School sports. Although I couldn’t make the trek out to Hershey for any of the action, I was parked squarely in front of my TV on Saturday night to watch finals. The one thing I really missed was the electricity in the building. The best part of any sporting event, particularly wrestling, is the feeling in the stadium before a big match. My dorm room didn’t exactly have that effect. However, there was plenty to be commented on throughout the night. With that said, nobody asked me, but…
-I don’t know why the Parade of Champions needs to be a tough guy contest. I couldn’t tell if the wrestlers were going to a State Finals match or prison.

-Quentin Wright was the exception to that last rule. I think somebody told him that he just won Powerball.

-With the advent of the State Duals Champion, the team scoring aspect of States is completely irrelevant.

-Mark Rappo reminded me of Matt Kyler in 2005 in the 103 pound finals. He not only is a very solid wrestler, but an absolutely enormous 103 pounds. He’s a good get for Penn, but he has a lot of adjustment to make if he wants to wrestle 125 pounds.

-He’s also about the 16th Rappo brother to win a state title.

-Brightest future award goes to Zach Horan. Although he was clearly overmatched by Rappo in finals, he’ll be back plenty of times. I’d like to see him dominate in out of state competition a little more, but he had a fantastic rookie campaign. With that said however, papers here refer to him already as the next Jordan Oliver, and they should probably hold their horses.

-Kenny Courts was sorely missed at states. Along with Chris Phillips, he’s the best freshman in the country, and should have set himself up to be Pennsylvania’s first four time state champ in a long time. Too bad an injury robbed us of seeing history.

-It would have been interesting to see how Anthony Marino could shake up the 112 pound bracket. The extremely talented sophomore handled finalist Taylor Brown twice already this season, but tore his trap muscle in regionals and had to default out of the tournament. He’s a name to remember next season.

-Does anybody realize that Shane Young hasn’t lost in two years? It certainly was a surprise to me. He’s a flat out stud with a year left to go. Probably the most underappreciated wrestler in Pennsylvania.

-I couldn’t believe the talk all week that Kegan Handlovic was the most vulnerable defending champ. It took about 4 seconds for him to change everybody’s mind in finals with an awesome ankle pick off the whistle. He’s not flashy, but he’s a goer who is incredibly physical. Hard to think he was an afterthought when he moved to Easton before his sophomore year. Unfortunately, he’ll be the least appreciated multi-time state champ in Easton history, since he did it all in Jordan Oliver’s shadow.

-Most surprising champ of the night was Cort Choate of Blue Mountain. We all knew 125 was wide open, but I didn’t envision Choate even sniffing finals. And in finals he did it the hard way, by riding out Chris Albright for the entire third period. One thing you can always find in Pennsylvania is good mat wrestling.

-The camera guy falling down in the background as Choate was winning his state title was also priceless.

-Celebrations on the whole were down this year. There was nobody doing round off back flips like Billy Spencer or my personal favorite, Gino Fortobono sprinting into the stands and hugging everybody he saw. Very subdued.

-Jordan Oliver’s high school career could not have ended much weirder. Josh Kindig wrestles to keep it close (shots were about 35 to 3 in favor of JO), Oliver gets booed because of a controversial call, and was visibly upset after finals. If there’s one thing I wish from this year’s finals, it would be Jordan having a better send off. It would have helped if Kindig actually would have wrestled him.

-Speaking of stall calls, they were all over the place tonight. Refs were super aggressive with them in some match, especially Shuster-Robinson, where they were banged 5 times, including the last one that basically decided the match for Shuster in overtime when Robinson was working a Merkel. For the record, I thought none of them were warranted. Meanwhile, Marshall Peppelman and Bryce Busler essentially do nothing for 6 minutes without either of them giving up points.

-Busler lost that match because of his unwillingness to go underneath Peppelman. I don’t care how good Marshall is on top, if you want to win a state title, you have to be able to get out from bottom.

-I would have loved to see Dylan Alton wrestle Colin Johnston. Johnston couldn’t win in overtime forever, and Adam Will made him pay for keeping scores so close. Although that was a fantastic upset, it let to a pretty anticlimactic final.

-I had never seen Joey Napoli wrestle before Saturday night but man was I impressed. He is absolutely viscous on top and seemed to have Walt Peppelman all figured out.

-Despite being outwrestled, Peppelman had a legitimate shot to at least take Napoli to overtime. I still can’t figure out why he didn’t cut him in the last 30 seconds and try to tie it with a take down. I know his tilt is lethal, but he didn’t have enough time to set it up and turn him.

-Three years ago if you told me that both Colin Johnston and Walt Peppelman would only win one state title I would have called you crazy. Both have three trips to finals and only one gold medal to show for it. Tough pill to swallow.

-Jake Kemerer is a house of a human being. There was nothing flashy about his win over Steve Bosak, he just bullied him. I was also impressed to learn that Kemerer had only given up one takedown the entire year. How haven’t I heard more about this kid?

-How many other states would Ryan Kemmerer and Josh Dziewa not place in?

-Performance of the night goes to Quentin Wright, despite the fact that Loffredo was pinned up until the ref slapped the mat, when he wiggled almost completely free. Wright looks like a basketball player trapped in a singlet, but he’s smooth as they come. He’s already shown it this year, but he could be the best college wrestler in this very impressive national class.

-Joe Kennedy is what Lehigh needs badly. Tough wrestler that can actually take people down. Although I think he’s way too slender to wrestle 197 for the Hawks.

-Incredible efforts from Jimmy Sheptock, Justin Haines, and Jason Dominick to lose in the first round and wrestle all the way back for third. I hope college coaches took notice of the guts each of those three kids showed.

-When Jordan Enck decides he really wants to wrestle, he’s unstoppable. I thought he looked disinterested in last year’s state finals match, but clearly had his game face on this year. The Coleman Scott red-dyed hair might have helped.

-For the first time in history, the most entertaining bout of the night was at heavyweight.

-If I had to describe Evan Craig in one word it would be “butterball”

-If I had to describe Evan Craig in three words they would be “incredibly skilled butterball”. He doesn’t look remotely like an athlete, but could end up one of the best heavyweights in Pennsylvania history. After one of the best scrambles of the night, he found himself down 5-0, but battled his way back into it before being taken down in the waning seconds to lose 9-7. This is a kid that will make waves.

-Sean Owen is Clearfield’s 40th State Champion. Quite impressive. He’s also the first junior to win a state title at heavyweight in well over a decade. Luckily for the fans in Pennsylvania, both he and Craig will be back next year. For a state that churns out little guys, it’s nice to see a solid crop of dancing bears coming up.

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Bob_x April 26 at 8:55am.
i like ceral
lolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
 
Bob_x April 26 at 8:52am.
hi
 
William Wagner April 14 at 12:08pm.
This past weekend was the 2008 Brute Scholastic Showcase, the best teams from numerous states (20 Teams) attended. PA won the tournament with a combined score of 406 - 46, beating Ohio, Mass., NC, Delaware, Colorado, Maryland, Indiana. They beat Maryland 63 - 0, which Maryland took 4th place lossing to NJ 29 - 24. To bad MO didn't have a team present to see what the result would have been.
 
PA March 17 at 11:46am.
Wow people are retarded thinking PA wrestling sucks...PA by far has the deepest quality wrestling in the country..Dont get me wrong other states have some bad asses...but put the 4th or 5th place finisher
of any other state up against a pa 4th or 5th kid and youll see what im talking about..why do think there are so many pa kids in ncaa tournament
 
Recap March 16 at 10:55pm.
nice recap
 
ReAlitT March 16 at 9:26pm.
Perhaps flow didn't cover PA states because the public channel(PCN) has rights and broadcast the finals live. Also, makes sense if you can get PA finals live, for free, to be in Jersey, gives wrestling fans more coverage. So, we had some of the top dogs(CA, PA, NJ, OH) for free this year.
Can't argue with that.
 
Usa March 16 at 5:27pm.
where can i watch the videos of the finals?
 
Ryan Cook March 16 at 5:23pm.
right to finals for johnston.... QUAL 1st 2nd 3rd
 
Sse01_x March 15 at 2:52pm.
Colin Johnston only has 2 trips to the finals.
 
Jjjfhu March 15 at 2:00pm.
what happened in the Oliver match?
 
Pafan March 14 at 10:40pm.
I agree with everyone of these. Jordan Oliver deserved a five minute standing ovation for what he's done in high school but instead he got booed
 
MES March 14 at 6:08pm.
Pa wrestling rules. Look at NCAA Division one qualifiers. There are more kids from Pa. than any other state.
 
VA March 14 at 3:58pm.
VA crushes bottom work
i mean the Granby system brings the hurt
 
Tkd March 14 at 2:14pm.
I liked the comment on this Evan Craig kid, it made me laugh. I also agree with the comments made about PA mat wrestling . . . I am from Ohio and all we do in open mats and such is go takedowns and learn takedown techniques and it shows . . . I used to go to Lock Haven to wrestle in their open and would get eaten up if I was on bottom.
 
PA=Yankees, Red Sox, Lakers March 14 at 12:44pm.
thanks for the article, i go to school out of state so i was unable to catch the action... evan craig goes to my former high school and i think you're certainly right that we will be seeing a lot more from him in the next couple years... as for the comments below, i hardly believe PA wrestling sucks, look at the facts and the great wrestlers our state has produced... We're the state everyone loves to hate because of our wrestling talent...
 
Nj March 14 at 11:32am.
NEW JERSEY IS THE BEST WRESTLING STATE.
 
Flwrestler_x March 14 at 11:25am.
Even down here in Florida we know PA is the best wrestling, I didn't know MO even had wrestling.
 
Ohio Guy March 14 at 8:19am.
Would have loved to see the pa finals. Pa with ohio two of the toughest state in wrestling. Lots of respect for PA wrestlers. And the MO guy your and idiot
 
Leroy Jenkins March 14 at 2:27am.
but mo's natl team is pretty good this yr

:)))))
 
Leroy Jenkins March 14 at 2:26am.
state population
----------------
12,440,621 penn
5,842,710 mo

so the ratio supports pa as well.

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