Raiders claim D9 Class AA dual meet mat title

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

DuBOIS - Without a doubt, the Brookville Raiders wrestling team remembered last year's score in the District 9 Class AA Dual Meet Championship match.
Ridgway 32, Brookville 29.
Last Saturday, the Raiders were able to wipe away some of that frustration from last year's disappointing loss to the Elkers by winning this year's title with a 36-33 win over the Elkers at DuBois Area High School.
It's Brookville's first dual meet title since 2004 and fourth overall.
"Without question, the (last year) was the toughest loss and without question, this year was the biggest and sweetest win," Raiders head coach Dave Klepfer reflected Tuesday afternoon. "It's the first (dual meet) title for this coaching staff and we felt like we gave one away last year. I'll never forget about it, truthfully. It'll go down as the toughest. I'll never get that image (of Ridgway celebrating) out of my head and I don't think any of those kids who were on the team last year felt any different. It hurt them and it was tough.
"It was nice to see how they stuck together and rebounded."
The Raiders halted Ridgway's five-year reign as district champions and looked better than it did in last Tuesday's 32-30 regular-season win at Ridgway. Credit Trey Constable and Dalton Zimmerman bumping down to 113 and 120 respectively and Klepfer's clever move of inserting little-used senior Brien Alexander at 220 to try to preserve some team points as big reasons for the change in flavor of the matchup.
The Raiders won eight of the first 10 bouts to build a commanding 36-12 lead and eventually forfeited the final two bouts to set the final score.
"You never want to over look every other competition you have, but this one (D-9 team championship) has been marked on the calendar by all athletes and coaches for 365 days now, so it feels pretty good to come away with the win against a really exceptional, well-coached team," said Klepfer. "This is really what we wanted last year, and things didn't work out the way we had hoped. However, the kids rebounded and had a nice individual tournament, and then we had a big group of guys wrestle freestyle over the summer. That's what it takes to beat teams like Ridgway and Reynolds and those types of teams. It's hard to be a three-month a year program and beat quality teams.
"It feels great to win, especially for the seniors who have been through just about every type of season you can have. A couple years ago when these seniors were sophomores we just had the lowest season in Brookville history. But, they turned it around last year and finished 14-2 and came into this year with one goal in mind as team and that was to win this tournament. I'm really happy for seniors who have been through thick and thin and seen it all - the worst and the best - here.
"Coming into the match we knew we had an opportunity for it to be close or to really put it on them and score some points.
"We made a couple moves, and the huge thing was Constable and Zimmerman getting down in weight. That was huge getting the 18 points down there, and that makes it tough to come back on us because we have guys in our lineup who really don't get pinned. Our guys showed up and wrestled hard."
The match started at 195 and Stout got the Raiders going with a 11-0 major decision of Seth Stahl. Stout led 2-0 after one period and added three backpoints in the second.
Chad Quail then momentarily gave Ridgway the lead when he pinned Alexander in the third period at the 4:48 mark while leading 11-0.
Alexander's insertion was Klepfer's move to make sure the Raiders got some points in the heaviest weights. Cieleski beat Quail 1-0 in their dual meeting, so Klepfer felt bumping Cieleski up to heavweight and get a win there could give the Raiders less of a disadvantage than if Quail would win a rematch over Cieleski. Instead of a possible nine-point deficit at 220 and heavyweight, the Raiders only had a three-point shortfall.
Klepfer gave a ton of credit to Alexander, who hadn't wrestled since December.
"Brien fought his tail off," Klepfer said. "He's a kid who comes in, doesn't say a lot and works his tail off. We've got four backups and it says a lot about all four of those guys. It's a tough sport to practice and not wrestle a lot. There aren't a lot of JV matches anymore. And when you do wrestle, you're thrown out against a regional type of kid, it says a lot about them as individuals. And Brien fought hard. He just showed a lot of fight. Even though he got pinned, it kind of set the tone."
While the pin gave the Elkers a 6-4 advantage, Brookville won the next four bouts to grab a 25-6 advantage.
Cieleski started the Raiders' mini-run as he bumped up to heavyweight and beat Chris Woods, 7-1. After a scoreless first period, Cieleski grabbed a 3-0 lead in the second on an escape and takedown before Woods broke free for an escape himself. Cieleski then hit a four-point move in the final period to seal his win.
Devin Joiner followed with a forfeit win at 106, then Brookville took advantage of Constable and freshman Dalton Zimmerman making weight for 113 and 120 respectively. The pair had been wrestling at 120 and 126 prior to Saturday.
Constable used an inside cradle to pin Elker Cody Stahl in 3:17 while leading 7-0 at 113, and Zimmerman beat Tad Pierce 5-1 when he decked the Elker in 2:48 at 120.
It was the second big win of the day for Zimmerman, who beat Smethport senior Nate Schwab, 2-1, in a 36-33 win over the Hubbers in the semifinals. Schwab was a state qualifier at 112 last year and was eighth two years ago.
Corey Bush got Ridgway back on the scoreboard at 126 when he pinned Cole Clever with 1.4 seconds left in the first period, making it 25-12.
But the Raiders won three bouts in a row.
Freshman Jimmy Miller quickly grabbed the momentum back for the Raiders with an 8-4 win at 132 over Zac McKnight.
Brock Zacherl followed with a 16-1 technical fall over Dakota Dahler in 5:34 at 138, while twin brother Brodie Zacherl scored a big win at 145, beating Steve Mitchell 5-3 to avenge an 8-7 setback to the Elker Tuesday.
Zacherl led Mitchell 2-0 after the first period, but Mitchell evened the score with a reversal in the second. Zacherl escaped before the end of the period to lead 3-2, then scored a reversal from the bottom in the third to go up 5-2.
Mitchell eventually earned an escape, but the Raider held Mitchell's last second attempts to tie the match.
Down 24 with four bouts to go, Ridgway needed falls in the final four bouts to tie things up, and Slade Horner pulled out an exciting pin at 152 to make that a possibility.
Horner and Raider Zach Vroman entered the third period of their bout scoreless. Horner started down in the final period and escaped to take a 1-0 lead. It appeared Horner might win by that margin.
However, Vroman took down the Elker with just over 10 seconds left, only to see Horner escape right away to even the score at 2-2 to force overtime.
In the extra session, Horner took Vroman down to his back and secured the fall just a few tenths of a second before the buzzer sounded.
It was Horner's second win over Vroman this week. Both are reigning D-9 champs.
Ridgway's Kyle Caggiano followed with a 6-1 win over Taylor Cudworth at 160, but the regular decision sealed the overall win for the Raiders.
With the match decided, Brookville forfeited to Elkers Dalton Sheasley and Jake Himes to end the match and set the final at 36-33.
"They (Raiders) weighed in like they had to," Elkers head coach Gary Gerber said. "We had a forfeit at bottom and they took advantage of it. They also moved guys down and went for big sweep down low, which was exactly what they had to do.
"We also lost the coin toss, which didn't give us our choices very much, but we have a big hole in our lineup and you can't be doing that, especially against a quality opponent like Brookville.
"It would have been nice to go out with a sixth straight title, but Brookville earned it today. I do feel bad for our seniors. They never lost a district championship here, and this was their first one. The seniors wrestled really hard for us, and I was pleased with the effort from them. They are a great group of kids and should be proud of their accomplishments."
Brookville reached the finals with a 36-33 semifinal win over Smethport.
The Raiders won seven of the first 10 bouts to build an insurmountable 36-9 lead, then forfeited the final four weights (145-170) to save some wear-and-tear on its wrestlers prior to the finals.

Courier-Express assistant sports editor Chris Wechtenhiser contributed to this story.