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.