HERSHEY >> He know only one way to dispatch an opponent.
Fast.
“I want to get out there early,” Tommy Killoran said at the conclusion of Boyertown’s match with Clearfield Thursday. He did just that in the first round of the PIAA Class AAA Team Championships, his 22-second pin at 285 continuing the dominant pace the Bears rode to a 61-12 victory at the Giant Center.
Boyertown’s Zak Reck works to score against Hunter Wright of Clearfield in a 7-4 decision at 160 pounds. (Nate Heckenberger – For Digital First Media)
Killoran’s philosophy was embraced in big part by his Boyertown teammates, who got their business done early. They put up 24 points at the start, scored two or more bonus points in all but one of the 11 bouts they won, and clinched the team win with five weights left to contest.
“It was a good start-off match,” said Gregg Harvey, whose technical fall at 182 provided the clincher for Boyertown (20-0). “We needed to get into a rhythm after districts, to buckle down.”
With this preliminary out of the way, a bigger challenge kicks in for Boyertown: Friday’s quarterfinal-round duel with Canon McMillan. While the Big Mac — runners-up from District 7 — will give them a test, the Bears will also be focused on erasing two years’ of quarterfinal-round unhappiness at states.
Losses at that level befell the locals the past two go-rounds, dropping them into the consolation bracket. Both times, they went on to be eliminated in the third round of consolations … to Parkland last year (36-26), and again in the 2014 duals (33-21).
“Getting to the next level, that’s the key,” head coach Pete Ventresca said. “We’ll go from there.”
Boyertown’s Matt Wilde takes Clearfield’s Matt Ryan to the mat during a technical fall at 106 pounds on Feb. 11. (Nate Heckenberger – For Digital First Media)
Boyertown came out like a steamroller at the start, flattening Clearfield wrestlers in the first four weights.
David Campbell (29-7) got things going at 120 with his 46-second drop of Cole Smay. Lucas Miller (28-5) followed by dispatching Hunter Blake 4:43 in at 126, and Garrett Mauger (26-9) kept the roll in place by getting the slap on Josiah McClarren four seconds before the end of the first period at 132.
The Bears’ pin parade continued with J.T. Cooley needing just 65 seconds to put Logan Gilbert to the canvas at 138.
“I was pleased with the first round,” Ventresca said. “We wanted to get our feet wet in this environment. I wanted us to wrestle our match.”
Boyertown continued to do that well after the Bison got their first points off a decision at 145. Hunter Vogels kicked in with a 3:47 pin of Zane Morgan at 152, and Zak Reck followed with a 7-4 decision of Hunter Wright at 160.
Clearfield picked up three points off another decision at 170, but Harvey (37-5) made the final outcome academic with his 4:10 tech-fall at 182. One of several Boyertown veterans who’ve been through the heartbreak of the past two state duals, he was part of stressing to his younger teammates the need to not fall into that dubious “threepeat.”
“We’ve been harping on the guys to get their heads on straight, to focus on what has to be done,” Harvey said. “I don’t think a Boyertown team has made it past the quarters. It will be a big stepping stone.”
From 220 on, the match was all Boyertown’s.
Jordan Wood (33-1) padded the Bears’ 38-12 lead with a 1:10 pin of Nate Lash, in prelude to Killoran’s team-fastest fall at 285. Matt Wilde (28-7) followed at 106 with a 5:10 technical fall of Matt Ryan before Jakob Campbell (24-1) capped the outing with a 3:21 pin of Jude Pallo at 113.
“Out here, you can’t look back,” Ventresca said. “You can’t take somebody lightly. We’re not overlooking anybody.”
“We’re not trying to do that,” Killoran said of again stumbling in the quarterfinal round. “We know what we’ve got to do so as not to have it happen again.”
NOTES >> Friday’s schedule kicks off at 8 a.m. with first-round consolations for Class AA, with AAA following at 10 a.m. Quarterfinal matches for AA (noon) and AAA will be followed by second-round consolations at 4 p.m. (AA) and 6 p.m. (AAA), with semifinals for both classes at 8 p.m.
