Friday Night Recap 12-14-12

I wasn’t able to make it to any tournaments on Friday night, but there was plenty of action involving local teams.

Sheetz Holiday Classic (at Penn Cambria)

This has the most local teams involved. I took a look at the tournament yesterday, and that link includes the tentative schedule for today’s action.

I don’t have much information on the results from Penn Cambria, mostly just updates that I got via text and phone calls from my Berlin connections. The Mountaineers had good reason to want to talk about their performance. The top returning team (defending champ Hempfield is not in the tournament this year), Berlin leads the team standings with 91.5 points. Canandaigua Academy, a New York school, is second with 81 points.

Here are the complete team standings from Day 1:

1. Berlin Brothersvalley    91.5
2. Canandaigua Academy 81
3. Huntingdon Area         77
4. Altoona                      75
5. Forest Hills                 69
6. Mount Pleasant           64.5
7. Ligonier Valley            57
8. HOPE for Hyndman     56.5
9. Cambria Heights          56
10. St. Mary’s                56
11. Richland                   55.5
12. Mercer                     53
13. Conemaugh Twp.      52
14. Penn Cambria            50
15. Central Cambria         43
16. Corry                       39
17. Hollidaysburg            38
18. Claysburg-Kimmel     35
19. Portage Area             34
20. Northern Cambria      21
21. Greater Johnstown      8

I didn’t hear of any major upsets yesterday. I plan to be there for the semifinals, which begin at 11 this morning.

Berlin has six semifinalists, which I would guess is the most of any team, but I don’t know that for sure. What I do know is the Mountaineers will be hard-pressed to end up with more than one finalist. I believe they only have one wrestler seeded in the top two (Bryce Fochtman at 160), so it’s not altogether unexpected. They face some very difficult semifinal matches, including dates with Triston Law (Forest Hills), Justin and Josh Patrick (Ligonier Valley) and D.J. Hollingshead (Altoona).

As far as the other teams go, Forest Hills should have the seeds to put three into the finals (Triston Law, Cody Law and Zach Pinkas). I don’t know much about Canandaigua, but Tom Elling’s Pennsylvania WrestlingHandbook shows just three returning wrestlers, led by 38-match winner Vinny Romeo, who eked out a 5-4 victory over Berlin freshman Braden Fochtman on Friday.

I don’t know what Huntingdon has, but I would think Altoona has the potential for at least three finalists. Hollingshead and Brandt are high seeds. I haven’t heard anything about returning champ Mante Barnes, but I’m assuming he’s in the mix.

Disclaimer: I really hate how any assumptions I’m making in this post. Without having seen the brackets or any of the wrestling, I could be off on some of this (such as if Barnes is even in the tournament). As a journalist, this goes against everything I believe in, but I am trying to give as complete a picture of the tournament as I can. If I am wrong, I apologize and will update the blog as soon as I can.

King of the Mountain

Bedford is at the prestigious King of the Mountain tournament. PA Power Wrestling has a recap of it (as well as the Reno Tournament of Champions). The Altoona Mirror has a short update on how Bedford’s wrestlers fared at Central Mountain. See the complete brackets here. The Bisons have Jon Gabriel (106) and Ryan Easter (120) in the quarterfinals.