CURWENSVILLE – On Monday night at Curwensville High School’s Patton Hall a classic basketball thriller was played with Clearfield edging the Tide 55-53 in overtime. On Tuesday night it was a different story as the Bisons wrestling crew won going away over their hosts, injury riddled Curwensville, 53-17.
Clearfield, boosted their record to15-1 on the season, used three pins and four forfeits to take care of their up river rivals.
The outcome was truly never in doubt as the Bisons would pick up the four forfeits and their 24 points at 103, 112, 171 and 215.
Curwensville’s Derek Brothers, at 130, started the evening on the positive side for the Tide as he scored a 17-0 technical fall over Max VonGunden of Clearfield, utilizing four near falls along the way to his 26th win of the year.
The Bisons would then score 17 unanswered points to take control of the match.
At 135 Andrew Hill of Clearfield gathered in a major decision over the Tide’s Hunter McCracken 14-6 to put the Bisons on the board. Hill had three takedowns in the third period.
Shane Harper, wrestling at 140 for the visitors, made quick work of Jason Baker, pinning the Tide sophomore in 1:50 putting the Bisons in front to stay at 10-5.
Curwensville senior Wes McGarry came out very aggressive against Derek Danver at 145, taking down the Bison for a quick 2-0 first period lead. McGarry also had another first period takedown to lead 4-2 after one. Danver, however, would answer with twelve straight points to get win number 27 on the campaign, a 14-4 major decision.
After Clearfield’s Will Beauseigneur won a hard fought 7-2 decision at 152 over the Golden Tide’s Kyle Kyler Curwensville would put some points on the board at 160.
Sophomore Alex Holland of Curwensville and junior Curtis Owens of Clearfield ended up with the closest bout of the night with Holland coming out on top in the 160 pound tussle, 8-7.
With one forfeit in the books for Clearfield it was Cliff Hill pinning Chad Desmett of Curwensville at 189 in the quickest fall of the evening at the 1:03 mark of the first frame.
The Bisons picked up their second forfeit at 215 to go out in front 35-8 with still two more coming later on.
Brian Zemba placed six points on the scoreboard for Curwensville at 285 when he pinned Jordan Lancaster of Clearfield in 4:17.
Forfeits at 103 and 112, the final two for the once beaten Bison grapplers, upped their insurmountable margin to 47-14 with two bouts left.
In the featured match of the night it was Jake Keller for the Golden Tide pitted against Kodie Lowder of Clearfield at 119. Keller, coming off an early season injury, was 8-2 coming in while Lowder was 22-9.
Keller, who won 29 bouts as a freshman in 2008-09, didn’t disappoint the hometown crowd as he blanked Lowder 7-0. Keller, with a first period takedown, led 2-0 after two periods were in the books. The Curwensville sophomore put the match away in the final two minutes with a reversal and a three point near fall to give the Tide their last team points.
Clearfield finished their successful night at 125 when Nolan Barger of the Bisons got the fall over Curwensville’s Nathan Wriglesworth in 1:51 making the final 53-17.
Clearfield head coach, Jeff Aveni, spoke about the win over the rival Tide, “We wanted to be more aggressive coming into this match and I thought we accomplished that. Our goal right now is to put pressure on our opponents and continue that aggressive style which I hope will carryover to our upcoming Thursday match.”
In junior high action earlier Tuesday afternoon it was Clearfield topping Curwensville 46-33.
In defeat Curwensville head coach Duane Wriglesworth was still very positive saying, “We knew that we had an uphill battle coming into this match. I was overall very pleased with the way our kids wrestled. We showed a lot of spirit for a young squad.”
In what should be one of the best matches of the year, the Bisons will host the Elkers of Ridgway on Thursday night with the junior high match starting at 6 pm and the varsity to follow shortly thereafter.
Ridgway comes into the encounter with a sparkling 18-3 mark on the season.
You can listen to Clearfield-Ridgway wrestling on WOKW-FM, 102.9, this Thursday, with the pre-meet warm-up starting at 7 pm.
The Golden Tide, now 5-14, will wrestle at Clarion in their final dual meet of the year, also on Thursday evening, against the Bobcats who are currently 9-8 on the 2009-10 campaign.
RESULTS
WT. CLASS CLFD CURW
130 Derek Brothers-Curw tech. fall Max VonGunden-Clfd 17-0 0 5
135 Andrew Hill-Clfd major dec Hunter McCracken-Curw 14-6 4 5
140 Shane Harper-Clfd pinned Jason Baker-Curw 1:50 10 5
145 Derek Danver-Clfd major dec Wes McGarry-Curw 14-4 14 5
152 Will Beauseigneur-Clfd dec Kyle Kyler-Curw 7-2 17 5
160 Alex Holland-Curw dec Curtis Owens-Clfd 8-7 17 8
171 Logan Shadeck-Clfd won by forfeit 23 8
189 Cliff Hill-Clfd pinned Chad Desmett-Curw 1:03 29 8
215 Andre Buck-Clfd won by forfeit 35 8
285 Brian Zemba-Curw pinned Jordan Lancaster-Clfd 4:17 35 14
103 Christian Stone-Clfd won by forfeit 41 14
112 Shane Peters-Clfd won by forfeit 47 14
119 Jake Kellar-Curw dec Kodie Lowder-Clfd 7-0 47 17
125 Nolan Barger-Clfd pinned Nathan Wriglesworth-Curw 1:51 53 17
REFEREE: Dick Wood