2017 Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic

Top 5 Moments From Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic

Top 5 Moments From Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic

The top 5 moments from the 2017 Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic. Austin DeSanto hammers Justin Mejia. Tanner Litterell had a crazy spladle and Austin O'Connor pinned #1 Jarod Verkleeren.

Mar 28, 2017 by Mark Bader
Top 5 Moments From Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic
Popular Right Now: Austin DeSanto Majors 4-Time Cali Champ Mejia | NHSCA Final Results | Complete Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic Results And Matches | Ed Ruth's Brother Is A Beast

The 43rd annual Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic went down on Saturday night with some of the top high school talent on display as Team USA knocked off Team PA 28-20.

As usual, the event featured some awesome matches and moments that people didn't see coming. Here are the top five moments from the 2017 Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic:

5. Allar And Oliver Put Up 27 Points!

At 160lbs, Jake Allar of Minnesota and Jacob Oliver of Pennsylvania got the first match of the dual started off with an old-school shootout. The duo went back and forth with the points flying until the final whistle, which saw Oliver, who is ranked sixth at 170, upset No. 4 Allar by a final score of 16-11 in a crowd-pleasing affair.

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4. Unranked Gavin Park Downs No. 6 Brandon Courtney

In the seventh match of the evening, we saw the biggest upset of the event. Once again PA proved the toughness of its state. Gavin Park was not in the high school rankings at 120lbs, but that didn't matter. He went out and handled sixth-ranked Brandon Courtney of Arizona.



3. No. 6 Austin O'Connor Pins No. 1 Jarod Verkleeren

Jarod Verkleeren was a State Champion and a World Champion, but that didn't matter to Illinois's Austin O'Connor. In an exciting first period we saw O'Connor go up 6-4 and as he was pressing for another takedown Verkleeren looked to get funky and create a scramble, but O'Connor was able to freeze him on his back and eventually pick up the non-controlled fall.

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2. Pin Of The Dual!

The 138lb match definitely housed the single most memorable moment of the event. Oklahoma's fifth-ranked Tanner Litterell put No. 6 Max Murin into a very compromising position and eventually picked up the fall. Was he really pinned or did the ref slap the mat out of mercy?

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1. DeSanto Dominates Mejia

One week after being the talk of the wrestling world for knocking off three-time world champion and three-time undefeated state champion Spencer Lee in the Pennsylvania state finals, Austin DeSanto had another huge match. The PA buzzsaw faced California's second-ever four-time state champion, Justin Mejia, who finished his high school career with a record of 168-1. Once again DeSanto thrived under the lights; the Drexel commit blew through the California all-star and nearly teched him, winning by a final score of 18-5.



You can view all matches and interviews from the Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic here.

More top notch high school competition will take place this weekend at the 8th annuual FloNationals.

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