Zach Holland on the regional medal stand for the first time after his second place finish
SHARON — The third time was a charm for Curwensville Golden Tide senior wrestler Zach Holland, as he qualified for the PIAA AA State Championship during his third and final trip to the North West Region Tournament at Sharon High School.
Holland (32-1) reached Saturday evening’s championship final after defeating Reynolds junior Alex Ischo (31-9) by a 3-1 score in the semifinals. Going into the match, Holland was ranked 11th in the state, while Ischo was ninth.
In the championship finals, Holland ran into a buzzsaw in the likes of Kenneth Kiser (40-3) from Saegertown. Kiser, now a 4-time state qualifier that includes a runner-up finish last year, showed why he is currently ranked second in the state by pinning Holland with one second remaining in the second period.
After a career that’s been hampered by several injuries, Holland is finally making his first trip to the Giant Center in Hershey for the PIAA AA State Championships. He will bring an 80-19 mark into his final high school tourney.
He will face the North East Region third place finisher, Luke Gorg (34-4) of Hughesville. Gorg has qualified for the states for the fourth time, but has yet to place in his previous three tries.
Action at Hershey begins Thursday at 9:00 am with the AA preliminaries.
Holland was joined at regionals by two other Tide wrestlers.
Jacob Carfley, here winning his first consy match, was 2-2 at regionals
106 pound sophomore Jacob Carfley won his opening match Friday night, but was knocked into the consolations after being pinned in the quarterfinals. Carfley did win his first wrestleback Saturday morning over Owen Hershelman (19-18) of Saegertown 3-0, but then was eliminated by Johnsonburg’s Wyatt Shaffer (29-9) by a 6-2 score. Carfley finished the year with a 27-12 record and will take a career mark of 41-23 into his junior season.
Junior Jake McCracken lost two close matches, 2-0 and 6-3, at 170 to finish his season at 24-9. McCracken will head to his senior season next year with a career mark of 61-34.
Curwensville finished a distant 24th in the team scoring with 19 points. The title was easily won by District 10’s state power Reynolds who amassed 187 points and will be sending nine wrestlers to states. District 9’s Brookville was second with 129.5 points and five qualifiers. In all, District 9 will be sending 18 wrestlers to Hershey.
Complete bracket results courtesy PA-Wrestling.com can be found by clicking here.
