ALTOONA — After a rough showing on Friday night at the North West AAA Regionals, the Clearfield Bison had a better second day, advancing two of their six sophomores onto the PIAA AAA State Championships in Hershey this upcoming weekend.
Making his second trip in two years will be Mark McGonigal at 152 pounds and 285 pounder Oliver Billotte will be making his first state appearance. Falling just one win short was another sophomore – Hayden Kavolick at 170.
Billotte (34-4) beat his semifinal opponent, District 6 champion Blaine Davis (30-7) of Mifflin County, by a 6-3 score to reach his first regional final. In the finals Billotte met up with the undefeated District 10 champion Thomas Pollard (34-0) of Meadville. All but 12 seconds of the first six minutes was spent in the neutral position, with each wrestler picking up an escape at the very beginning of the second and third periods. After another 30 seconds of the sudden victory period, Pollard hot a 4-point move to claim the title.
The first opponent for Billotte in Hershey in the round of 16 will be another sophomore making his first PIAA appearance – the South West Region runner-up William McChesney (28-4) of Greensburg-Salem
At 152, McGonigal (33-7) didn’t make it easy for himself to try and qualify a second time for states after losing an overtime match in the quarterfinals Friday night. He was faced with the task or running off four wins through the wrestlebacks on Saturday to come back and get third. And that’s exactly what he did, including defeating in the consy finals the wrestler that beat him in the quarters. McGonigal lost to the District 6 champ Anson Wagner (26-12) of Mifflin County in sudden victory, but turned the tables to the tune of a 5-2 win when it counted most.
McGonigal has a preliminary match up against the South Central fourth place finisher, Colt Barley (36-5), a junior from Penn Manor making his first PIAA appearance.
Like McGonigal, Kavolick at 170 needed four Saturday wins in the wrestlebacks to reach the state tourney. Unfortunately he fell one win short and had to settle for a fourth place finish in his first year of varsity wrestling. He was pinned in 4:14 by the number two seed, Trent Tidball (33-2) a senior from Meadville. Kavolick finished the season third on the team with 28 wins, against 14 losses.
One other Bison, freshman Evan Davis (26-15) at 106 made it to the third round of consolations. He was beaten by Erie McDowell frosh Lance Sallot (25-10) 4-3, one of the few matches the entire season to go six minutes for Davis.
Four Bison were defeated in the second round of consolations, including a trio of sophomores and the lone Bison senior at regionals.
Nolan Barr at 126 ended his season at 24-13 and will take a 46-28 record into his junior season next year.
At 24-14, Luke Freeland at 138 had a similar season record and he’ll be 42-31 for the start of his junior year.
At 145 Karson Kline (24-17) will take 50 wins, against 33 losses into his third season next year.
Brett Zattoni at 182, the only senior to make it to regionals this year for the Bison, finished the season at 21-19, improving his win total each year since he joined the squad as a sophomore and finished his carer 36-56.
Juniors Derrick Bender (8-22) at 113 and Matt Bailor (4-11) at 195 saw their seasons end in the first round of the wrestlebacks.
This year’s team title went to Bellefonte with 184.5 points, which included four champs and two runners-up. The top finisher from District 9 was DuBois in fifth with 114.5 points and four state qualifiers. Clearfield finished in a tie with Altoona for 10th place with 65 points.
Action gets under way for McGonigal at the Giant Center in Hershey on Thursday afternoon at 4:00 pm with the preliminary round. Billotte doesn’t get started until the round of 16, which will start as soon as the preliminary round ends.
Complete AAA North West Region results courtesy PA-Wresling.com can be found by clicking here.
Championship and Consolation final results: