Super Seven: 7 finalists lead Spring-Ford to team title at PAC Wrestling Championships
LOWER POTTSGROVE >> Two more goals achieved.
That’s how things went Saturday for Spring-Ford, which joined the rest of the Pioneer Athletic Conference for its individual tournament at Pottsgrove. Individually and collectively, the Rams were sufficiently dominant over their PAC adversaries.
Spring-Ford exceeded its goal of championship-final qualifiers by having seven wrestlers claim either gold or silver medals. It had two more get bronze medallions — the top three in each weight class making the medal stand — and 12 qualify for the final round.
That all contributed to the Rams finishing as the tourney’s team champion. They outdistanced runner-up Boyertown (203) and the rest of the league, Owen J. Roberts third with 175.5 points.
“The kids did a good job individually,” head coach Tim Seislove said. “Our goal was to win the tournament and have six finalists. We ended up with seven.”
Those seven finalists were led by weight class champions Cole Smith (113), Quinn Smith (126) and Ryan Lepore (145).
It also gives Spring-Ford a head of steam in advance of the District 1 Duals competition, whose seedings will be determined Sunday. The Rams (10-3 overall) are the district’s defending Class AAA champion and placed third in PIAA competition last year.
“We want to get a good seed for the duals,” SF junior Quinn Smith added, “and show the district what we are.”
Smith was the most dominant of the Rams’ three champions, dispatching his 126-pound opponents in a combined 4:39. He finished with a pair of pins — the fastest, 35 seconds, coming in the quarterfinals — and a technical fall to run his record to a gaudy 24-4.
“I wanted to get back to working my techniques and letting it fly,” he said. “I worked more on my bar halves, keeping them tight. I think the first match I had a tight bar.”
Cole Smith preceded Smith to the top step of the podium, winning at 113. The junior got by Boyertown’s Luke Heimbach 4-1, Like his teammate, Cole scored a first-period pin and tech-fall in early-round bouts.
At 145, Lepore (19-8) capped his sweep with a second-period fall. The SF senior scored a pin and 8-5 decision of Perk Valley’s Luke Ricci in the earlier rounds.
The Rams’ silver medalists were Gus Smith at 106, Steven DeAngelo at 132, Anthony Attilio at 152 and Kyle Huston at 189.
“There are goals we set for ourselves,” Quinn Smith said. “To get as many points and pins possible.”
Chance Babb, the PAC’s leader in victories (29), boosted his total with a 36-second pin and two major decisions. The second, against Attilio in the 152-pound final, made him the third of three champions for a Boyertown unit that came away with five finalists and three third-place finishers.
“I’m taking them one by one,” Babb said. “I came in wanting to work on my feet.”
Brody Coleman and Gavin Sheridan preceded Babb in the Bears’ gold-medal parade. Coleman scored a 3-0 decision on Spring-Ford’s Gus Smith at 106, and Sheridan topped Brandan Rozanski at 120 by a similar score.
“I feel comfortable at this weight,” Sheridan said, “and I have a positive mindset. I come out believing nobody can beat me.”
Sheridan (24-6) posted a pair of first-period falls in the early rounds. Coleman did the same, his fastest a 46-second drop in the quarterfinals.
Alan Alexander remained one of the brightest spots for a Pope John Paul II program whose principal emphasis is developing the skills of its individual grapplers. The senior tech-falled his way to gold at 160, outscoring his opponents by a combined 54-9, and gave considerable credit to head coach Chris Sheetz for his progression.
“Things opened up for me as a wrestler,” Alexander, in his second year with PJP after transferring from Boyertown his junior year. “I needed to grow as a wrestler psychologically.
“It’s great to have a coach like him (Sheetz), who had done what he did (state championship) recently. He knows what it takes to be there, and how to act. He has me refined in my techniques.”
Owen Koch made a bit of history for Phoenixville with his gold-medal effort at 189. The Phantom senior became the program’s first champion in a PAC or sectional tournament since Ken Cenci won at 285 in the District 1 Section Two competition in 2011.
“It’s a big achievement,” Koch admitted. “I wanted to come out with a win.”
Koch (16-1) pinned his way through the day, all scored in the second period. He scored falls in 12 of his victories.
“We feel free to do more,” he said of the loosening of restrictions imposed during the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season. “Moving forward, it feels normal. Wrestling without masks … that’s a huge thing. I had trouble breathing with it last year.”
Owen J. Roberts had a pair of champions in Matthew Englehardt (132) and Dillon Bechtold (172). Bechtold (25-5) pinned his way to PAC gold, his fastest drop 27 seconds, while Englehardt had technical falls setting the stage for his pin in the finals.
Kelly Kakos scored PV’s lone gold at 138, scoring falls in all three of his bouts to run his record to 24-3. His fastest pin was at 1;23 in the quarterfinals.
At the upper end of the weight scale, Pottsgrove’s Dominic DeMeno and Norristown’s Eric Whitt were champions at 215 and 285, respectively. DeMeno placed first when PV’s Grant Euker defaulted due to a leg injury, and Whitt got a forfeit when Methacton’s Damian Moser was halted by illness.
NOTES >> With the PAC dual season still ongoing, Seislove found value in seeing Owen J. and PV in action, Spring-Ford facing them in Liberty Divisional duals in the coming weeks. “We need to stay healthy and work hard,” he said. … Boyertown was second to the Rams in championship finalists (five) and had eight wrestlers score medals from its 11 final-round qualifiers.
