He enjoyed the success his Spring-Ford program achieved last winter.
What Tim Seislove did not enjoy was saying farewell to the corps of 12th-graders who played a large role in that successful showing: A 23-4 overall record, first-place finish in the Pioneer Athletic Conference’s tournament, second place at District 1-AAA West and third in the Southeast AAA Regional.
Going the graduation route last spring were the likes of Ryan Hayes, Zach Dorsey, Frankie Krauss, Brendan Zimmie, Nick Beauchamp and Jon Cooper. They combined for 219 wins and five state-tournament appearances, headed by Krauss’ seventh-place finish in the 160-pound Class AAA bracket.
John Strickler — The Mercury
Pottstown’s Logan Pennypacker, back, puts Spring-Ford’s Oscar Granese on his back during their 138 pound bout earlier this season. Pennypacker is just six wins away from hitting the century mark.
“We lost a strong group of seniors to graduation last year,” Seislove said in his preseason assessment to the 2015-16 season. “Right now, we area just trying to fill all 14 weight classes to be competitive in the toughest league in District 1.”
They’ve done that for the most part, filling the vacancies in their lineup with a mix of returning veterans and promising newcomers. And there’s been an appreciable measure of quality in with the quantity.
It starts with seniors Hunter Mitch and Steve Rice, who’ve put together respective 12-2 and 11-2 records. Classmates Jimmy Frank (8-3), Brett McGill (6-4), Anthony Kostusiak (4-2) and Matt Krieble (3-2) area augmenting those efforts while adding to the senior-level leadership.
Another plus has been sophomore Brandon Meredith, who’s off to an 11-3 start in the wake of a freshman campaign that saw him win 34 times and qualify for the Southeast regional. And the Class of 2019 has provided a trio of solid performers in Jack Files (8-4), Dirk Nugent (7-1) and Shane Reynolds (5-0).
“This year we have good senior leadership, along with some nice freshmen and sophomores,” Seislove noted. “We have three freshman wrestling. They’re nice kids who are working hard.”
The Rams have made strides from their start to the 2015-16 season: A visit to the Cumberland Valley Kick-Off Classic, where they finished 11th of 21 teams and saw their highest individual finish a third from Hunter Mitch at 126.
Spring-Ford went 4-1 at the Ghost Town Duals the next weekend, finishing second in the team tourney at Abington. The Rams breezed in pool competition against Pennsbury (49-18), Wissahickon (66-12), Hatboro-Horsham (46-24) and Northeast High (74-6) but fell to Upper Darby, 52-23, in the championship match.
Following that performance was a breezy start to their Pioneer Athletic Conference schedule. The Rams rolled up wins at Pottstown (45-24) and Pottsgrove (54-18) bookending a home-mat victory over Perkiomen Valley (54-15).
“We’re a work in progress,” Seislove said. “We have to keep getting better if we’re going to be competitive.”
Their numbers have been good thus far. While their eight dual-match opponents forfeited a combined eight weights, the Rams have had only one open spot in that span.
“We’re trying to fill a lineup,” Seislove said after the Pottstown match. “We had 14 out there, so that’s good.”
Seislove has also bolstered his coaching staff with the addition of Tom Hontz, two years removed from a legendary career heading the Upper Pekiomen program. In 24 years at the helm, Hontz helped mold the Indians into a perennial power in the league, district, region and state while overseeing numerous standout individual careers.
Hontz, who stepped down at the end of the 2014 season in conjunction with his becoming head coach of the UP football team, appears to enjoy being back in the sport in his current capacity.
“It’s more fun being an assistant coach,” he said jokingly after the Pottstown match.
The next stop in Spring-Ford’s self-improvement caravan is Manheim Central. The Rams will be there this week for the Manheim Holiday Tournament, which they won last year with help from seven finalists and the individual championships of Ryan Hayes (120) and Frankie Krauss (160).
Meredith (106) and Krieble (138) were second in their respective brackets. Rice (170) added a third, and Frank (113) a fifth.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
1. Checking the individual numbers for Pioneer Athletic Conference wrestlers, it’s no surprise Jordan Wood ranks as the circuit’s top pinner.
Heading into the holiday season, Wood (15-1) has dropped 12 opponents. That puts the Bear senior and Pennsylvania’s defending 220-pound Class AAA champion far and away ahead of the rest of the league.
Phoenixville’s Matt Cermanski is second with eight, and three other PAC grapplers — Boyertown’s Brody O’Connell, Phoenixville’s Tanner Romance, Owen J. Roberts’ Bill Scherfel — are tied for third. Behind them, Spring-Ford’s Hunter Mitch follows with six.
2. In terms of percentage of wins by pin, though, Scherfel and Methacton’s Leland Mersky lead the way.
The Owen J. Roberts senior (7-2) has won all his bouts on falls, as has Mersky (5-6). Cermanski (9-2), with eight pins, boasts an .889 percentage while Wood follows in third.
3. Boyertown’s Gregg Harvey leads the PAC in technical falls. The senior’s three T-falls rank higher than six league teams, making him most prolific in terms of running 15-point scores on opponents.
4. The Bears also have the most wrestlers with double-figure wins. Their 10 grapplers who’ve achieved that total at present are headed by Gregg Harvey (19-3), Jordan Wood (15-1), Jakob Campbell (14-4), Tommy Killoran (14-4) and David Campbell (13-5).
Spring-Ford, with three wrestlers having compiled 10 or more wins, is a distant second in this category.
CENTURY CHASE
They’ve been running neck-in-neck the first month of the 2015-16 season, matching each other victory-for-victory as they close in on the 100-win plateau.
This week, Logan Pennypacker and Bryant Wise take their race to the Reading area. They will head the Pottstown contingent joining the annual Gov. Mifflin Holiday Tournament being staged today and Wednesday at Gov. Mifflin Intermediate School.
And while neither may hit the mark this week — both stand at 94 victories, meaning they would need to wrestle six times at Mifflin and win all six — the Trojan seniors stand to cover much of the ground separating them from three-digit fame. Wise went 4-0 last year, topping the 138-pound weight class, while Pennypacker went 3-1 in finishing second at 132.
The area wrestler closest to 100 wins is Boyertown’s Jakob Campbell, who has 96 to date. But the Bears, whose last action was the “Beast of the East” Tournament at the University of Delaware the weekend of Dec. 19-20, won’t be back in competition until a Jan. 2 date at Cumberland Valley; and the earliest Campbell could hit the mark would be Wednesday, Jan. 13, when his team visits Perkiomen Valley.
