CURWENSVILLE – It didn’t take the Curwensville high school wrestling squad very long to get over a tough weekend loss to Brockway (38-33) in the District 9 AA duals. The Golden Tide just took it out on visiting Clarion Tuesday night, winning their 12th match of the season, 42-29.
It really wasn’t much of a glittering win for the Tide as they actually won only two bouts, both falls, as they picked up five forfeits along the way. Clarion on the other hand won five bouts to pick up their 29 points. There was no bout at 152 as neither squad sent a wrestler out to the center circle.
The win on Golden Tide Parent\’s Night has Curwensville now 12-7 on the year, while the Bobcats have a very deceiving 2-16 mark.
Curwensville received their five forfeits at 119, 125, 140, 189 and 215, along with those two pins. One fall came at 130 by the ever improving Jeff Smallwood in 3:42 over Lee Foltz of the Bobcats and the other by super freshman Jake Keller at 112 in just 24 seconds. Keller is now 22-3 in his first year of varsity action. Smallwood, with his second pin of the year, moves to 12-6.
In a feature match at 135, Matt Bauer of Clarion was knotted 6-6 with the Tide’s Brett Sutika when he turned the Curwensville wrestler in the third period for the fall at the five minute mark. Sutika scored six second period points to take a 6-4 lead into the final two minutes before Bauer got the reversal and then the pin.
At 145 and 160 the Bobcats recorded two more falls as Gus Babington pinned sophomore Jeremy Bloom of the Tide in 1:23, and then Alex Gunter picked up a fall over Matt Schultz, a junior for the Tide, in 1:05.
Joel Matticks, at 171 for the Bobcats, took a 13-6 decision over Curwensville sophomore Zack Dimmick to tighten the team score to 24-21 in favor of the Tide. Matticks used an eight point second period to pick up his eighth win of the year.
After the Tide picked up forfeits at 189 and 215 the Bobcats garnered another win as Mark Divins, at 285, bested Walter Koontz 7-2. Divins is now 17-4 on the season.
Clarion sent out perhaps their best wrestler at 103 in Mike Bauer. Bauer picked up 11 first period points and six in the second two minutes to record a 17-0 technical fall over Greg Koptchak of the Tide. Bauer pushed his overall record on the year to 19-2.
The Curwensville junior high squad remained unbeaten as they pulled out a 45-33 victory over the Clarion youngsters.
The Tide will host Brookville on Thursday night at Patton Hall with the junior high match starting at 6 pm and the varsity to immediately follow.
Listen to Golden Tide wrestling this Thursday night on WOKW-FM, 102.9, starting at approximately 7:15 pm.
MATCH SUMMARY
119 Derek Brothers, CU won by forfeit 6 0
125 Tyler Peters, CU won by forfeit 12 0
130 Jeff Smallwood, CU pinned Lee Foltz, CL 3:42 18 0
135 Matt Bauer, CL pinned Brett Sutika, CU 5:00 18 6
140 Wes McGarry, CU won by forfeit 24 6
145 Gus Babington, CL pinned Jeremy Bloom, CU 1:23 24 12
152 NO BOUT
160 Alex Gunter, CL pinned Matt Schultz, CU 1:05 24 18
171 Joel Matticks, CL dec Zack Dimmick, CU 13-6 24 21
189 Jonathan Michaels, CU won by forfeit 30 21
215 Nathan Russell, CU won by forfeit 36 21
289 Mark Divins, CL dec Walter Koontz, CU 7-2 36 24
103 Mike Bauer, CL tech. fall over Greg Koptchak, CU 17-0 36 29
112 Jake Keller, CU pinned Dustin Young, CL :24 42 29