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SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2011 PAGE 13C
LOCAL COLLEGE ROUNDUP
PIAA WRESTLING
Reilly, Dattolo earn All-America status The Times Leader staff
Mohawk, Cougar win medals Meyers’ Pasone takes seventh at 112 pounds. Hazleton’s Hoffman is eighth at 171. By DAVE ROSENGRANT drosengrant@timesleader.com
HERSHEY — Getting a medal by advancing to the state finals isn’t the only way for a wrestler to make a name for himself. Take Meyers’ Vito Pasone and Hazleton Area’s Chad Hoffman. The duo didn’t advance to the final match in their brackets, but they still walked away with state medals. Pasone took seventh in the Class 2A 112-pound bracket, while Hoffman placed eighth in Class 3A at 171. “Never end a tournament on a loss,” Pasone said. “I’m just happy I could do that.” Pasone earned his seventhplace medal with a fall in 2:15 over Bermudian Springs’ Brad Farley. It was the junior’s third win at the state tournament this weekend. The bout may have ended midway through the second period, but it wasn’t an easy win for the Mohawk standout. He was trailing Farley 4-1 early in the second after a reversal. But Pasone quickly worked an escape and before he knew it Farley was on his back. Meyers coach Ron
ED BOARDMAN/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES LEADER
Chad Hoffman of Hazleton Area moves in on Grant Dickey of Cedar Cliff during 171-pound consolation-round action at the PIAA Class 3A tournament. Hoffman, who earned a 3-2 decision against Dickey, finished in eighth place in his weight class.
Swingle was yelling for a stalemate before the pin and was glad the official didn’t listen. “I was like, ‘Oh no, not now – don’t call it now,’ ” Swingle said. Pasone knew not to stop just because his coach wanted a call. “Down here if you catch somebody you can’t let up because it can come back to haunt you,” he said. “When I had him on his back I’m thinking, ‘Don’t let him up,’ because I might regret it later on
in the match because Farley’s a tough kid.” Like his previous two tournaments – the District 2 Class 3A and Northeast Regional events – Hoffman fell into the loser’s bracket and tried to wrestle back to take third. He fell short of the goal with the loss Saturday morning. Hoffman lost his third-round consolation match Saturday morning to Butler Area’s Cole
Baxter via pin to fall into the seventh-place match. In the bout for seventh and eighth, Hoffman dropped a 3-2 decision to Shane Gilmore from Council Rock South. The Cougar held a 1-0 lead after garnering a point for an escape early in the second period. He was shortly taken down by his opponent to go down 2-1 but tied the score with another escape before the period ended. Gilmore worked a third-period escape to close out the victory and held on after several shots by Hoffman went unfinished. “I thought I had a deep shot. I didn’t finish it,” Hoffman said. “I’m disappointed in a way, but it’s a pretty good experience as a junior. I thought I should have had two (points) on that takedown, but I got to finish it.” The optimistic point of view for the two Wyoming Valley Conference athletes is that both are juniors and will have another shot next year to try to improve on this year’s medals. “That’s the experience you get out of this,” said Hoffman, who went 2-3 during the weekend to end his season with a 34-13 record. “I wrestled five matches here. If you get to the finals you only wrestle four. So I got an extra match in. It’s just an awesome experience being a junior. I loved it.”
Tribute paid to D2 presence Desiderio While working match, official Hanson wears wristbands of mentor, who died last year.
N O T E B O O K ed to work the PIAA Championships.
WILD KNIGHT Western Wayne’s Casey Fuller picked up a fifth-place medal in HERSHEY — Whether being the PIAA Class 2A Championan athlete, coach or official, Jim ships during the weekend. Fuller, a 160-pound senior, Desiderio was seen for more began his career as part of the than four decades at the PIAA successful Wyoming Seminary Championships. programs, which was in the Unfortunately, Desiderio succumbed late last year after a middle of winning five straight Pennsylvania Prep Championbattle with cancer. ships. His presence was felt SatFuller has only been with the urday night during the PIAA Wildcats for two years and the Class 3A Championships when District 2 official Corry Hanson furthest he got with the Blue Knights was the Pennsylvania paid tribute to his friend and Prep Tournament. Unable to mentor. Hanson, who was working the make the national prep event, state tournament for the second Fuller wrestled at 171 for the Knights, but was about 15 time in his career and the secpounds light for that class and ond consecutive year, wore Desiderio’s green and red wrist- didn’t notch as many victories as he did for Western Wayne. bands and had a picture of his “I had the best workout partcomrade in one of his pockets ners in the country there,” Fullduring the match. er said about the Seminary Desiderio and Hanson are program. “This tournament is both graduates of Meyers. the most physically grueling “That means a lot. The guy tournament I’ve ever been a part was a great guy,” said Francis “Yogi’’ Michael, a former stand- of. It feels like everyone wants to go out there and punch you in out wrestler, official and friend the face.” of Desiderio. “Corry and him He capped his high school were very close and he’s really career with a 4-3 win over Mifshowing a lot of respect. That’s flinburg’s Ty Walter and by real nice.” grabbing three wins and two Last weekend, Hanson, a losses during the weekend. Wyoming Valley Conference “My goal was to win it, so I official, worked his second Class didn’t reach my goal,” Fuller 2A Northeast Regional Tournament. He has also worked a pair added. “I knew I was capable of winning a state championship. I of Class 3A regionals. Hanson is only in his 11th year didn’t do it though. I didn’t wrestle up to that ability, but I as an official and was one of 24 officials in the state to be select- got a medal.” By DAVE ROSENGRANT drosengrant@timesleader.com
How They Fared
Here’s how the five remaining District 2 wrestlers fared on Friday, the third day of the PIAA Championships at Giant Center in Hershey.
CLASS 2A •Vito Pasone, Meyers (112): In the seventh-place match against Bermudian Springs’ Brad Farley he won via fall in 2:15. Place: Seventh. •Casey Fuller, Western Wayne (160): In the fifth place match against Ty Walter from Mifflinburg he won 4-3. Place: Fifth •Eric Laytos, Lackawanna Trail (215): He pinned Danville’s Dylan Dailey in 2:27 in the seventh-place match. Place: Seventh
CLASS 3A •Chad Hoffman, Hazleton Area (171): In the third round of consolations he was pinned by Butler Area’s Cole Baxter in 2:11 and dropped into the seventh-place match, where he dropped a 3-2 decision to Council Rock South’s Shane Gilmore. Place: Eighth •Josh Popple, Coughlin (189): He defeated Kiski Area’s Matt McCutcheon, 7-2 in the semifinals to advance to the finals. In the finals vs. Central Dauphin’s Kenny Courts he was pinned in 38 seconds. Place: Second
Fuller’s two brothers, Beau and Morgan, are also on the Wildcats’ team as a sophomore and freshman, respectively. FASTEST FALLS The quickest pin from Sat-
urday’s action come by Butler Area’s Cole Baxter with a fall in the 171-pound third round of consolations when he got his opponent on his back in 2:11. The fastest fall from Class 2A on Saturday was by Meyers’ Vito Pasone when he pinned Bermudian Springs’ Brad Farley in 2:15 in their seventh-place bout. From Friday night’s 2A consolation round action, Montoursville’s Luke Frey rebounded from a loss in the semifinals to record a fall in 55 seconds in the fourth round of consolations.
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT Norristown’s Brett Harner may have lost his first match of the PIAA Class 3A Championships on Thursday, but he opened everyone’s eyes on Saturday. The sophomore picked up his 100th career win while participating in the third round of consolations. He then picked up his 101st career victory in the fourth round of the losers bracket. That’s not all the District 1 wrestler accomplished during the weekend. He also won four matches in the wrestle-backs, to grab a fourth-place finish, to run his season’s win total to 56, one shy of the state record for wins in a season set by Erie Tech’s Solomon Carr in 1983.
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POPPLE Continued from Page 1C
eight-year individual title run for District 2. “This loss, I could understand how he feels,” Coughlin coach Steve Stahl said. “On the other hand,I’mproudofhim.He’sgota great future ahead of him. “The plan we had for him, we just didn’t get a chance to work. These things happen. It’s just unfortunate that it happened to us tonight.” Popple tried everything he could do to try to avoid having his record take a number other than a zero in the loss column for the first time this season. He tied up around Courts’ neck to try to defend the standout’s lethal shot, but he just couldn’t keep it up from the quick hands and feet of Courts. In the championship match, Popple got caught the same way he did in 2010 and fell victim again, only lasting 10 seconds longer than his last bout with the standout from District 3. “He’s a good wrestler. I don’t know how I did it two years is a row against him,” Courts noted. “The worst thing we were trying to do was stay on our feet and not give him the chance to pick top, but we didn’t have to worry about that.” The optimistic part of Popple’s night is that he ends his career as a two-time state medal-
BASEBALL
King’s swept in twin bill
Finishing up a spring break trip to Orlando, Fla., the Monarchs lost both games of a doubleheader against Keystone College. King’s dropped the opener 14-3 and then fell 10-9 in the nightcap. Brenton Eades led the team at the plate, finishing the day 4-for-6 with a double and four RBI.
SOFTBALL
Wilkes wraps up spring trip
The Lady Colonels dropped two games at the Salisbury University Invitational, losing 5-0 to Gettysburg College and 24-1 to No. 22 Christopher Newport. Freshman Jordan Borger led Wilkes (0-8) in the opener by going 2-for-3 with a double.
MEN’S LACROSSE
Randolph-Macon 16, King’s 4
The host Yellow Jackets scored nine unanswered goals in a 30-minute stretch to hand the Monarchs (1-3) a nonconference loss. Evan Seward had two goals while T.J. Tagg and Lenny Fox each added one score for King’s.
WOMEN’S LACROSSE FDU-Florham 17, Misericordia 4
Freshman Kate Pagnotta scored twice for the Cougars, who dropped their MAC opener. Pagnotta now has 11 goals in the first three games of her collegiate career. Camilla Hansen and Emily Foley added a goal apiece for Misericordia (1-2, 0-1). ist, with 132 career wins, the most in school history and will attend Division I Harvard in the fall to begin another promising career. Courts advanced to the 189 finals with an 8-5 win over Upper Moreland’s John Bolich in the semifinals. “I didn’t care where he was (in the bracket) I just wanted to wrestle him one more time and try to redeem myself for what happened last year,” Popple added. Popple’s semi got off to a slow start, as there was no score after the first period, but that worked to his advantage. The Coughlin senior won the toss in the second period and deferred to the third. That made McCutcheon take the down position to attempt to score. But as it has been throughout his whole career, that only works to Popple’s advantage because he does his best work on top. “Everything in my mind just went ’yes, that kid’s pretty dumb,’”Popplesaid.“I’msurehe did the research and knew I was pretty good on top but me keeping it close in that first period was key and just making him have to go down because otherwise he wouldn’t have had chance to score points so defer was the smart choice.” In the second period, Popple turned the match into a one-sided affair by piling up three sets of back points with his famous tilt to open a 7-0 lead.
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FRANK DIMON/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES LEADER
Meyers junior Vito Pasone earned seventh place at 112 pounds with a fall in 2:15 over Bermudian Springs’ Brad Farley during Saturday’s consolation-round action at the PIAA Class 2A wrestling tournament.
LA CROSSE, Wis. — Juniors Mike Reilly of King’s and Anthony Dattolo of Wilkes finished sixth and eighth, respectively, in their weight classes to earn All-America status on Saturday at the NCAA Division III National Wrestling Championships. The top eight finishers at each weight are named AllAmericans. Reilly, the No. 4 seed at 174 pounds, won both of his matches on Friday before dropping an 8-2 decision in the semifinals to No. 8 Bradley Banks of Wartburg on Saturday. The Crestwood grad was then forced to default with a rib injury against No. 7 David Priest of Ithaca in the consolation semifinals. The match was halted with 53 seconds left in the first period, leading Reilly to forfeit his fifth-place match to finish in sixth. Dattolo, the fifth seed at 149 pounds, had gone 2-1 on the opening day before losing twice on Saturday to earn eighth place. Facing Delaware Valley’s Zac Andrews in the consolation bracket on Saturday, Dattolo lost 9-6 to fall into the seventhplace match, where he was defeated 18-3 by James Locke of Coe College. Dattolo finished the season at 29-5. It was the first time either wrestler claimed All-America status. Reilly joins his brother Jason, who finished in fourth place at 197 pounds for the Monarchs in the 2007 national tournament. Reilly went 32-3 on the season.
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