Glenn Kaiser recaps Saturday’s SOL Championships that saw Hatboro-Horsham, North Penn and Council Rock South capture team titles. American Conference photos provided courtesy of Kim Supko. Check back for a gallery.
SOL Conference Championships: Hatboro-Horsham Reigns In The American
By Glenn Kaiser
Horsham, PA- Forget the regular season and look to the postseason, is what many say when it comes to tournament time, especially this time of year in the PIAA Individual Championships. It rang true for Hatboro-Horsham Saturday afternoon, as the H-H Wrestling Warriors took to the mats in their home gym one last time in this league qualifier, and they edged Quakertown, the regular season champs for the 2018 SOL American team title, advancing 12 wrestlers to Districts. All three SOL Conferences will meet up next Saturday at Quakertown to compete in the District One East Championships, which is step two to Hershey.
Despite an early season dual loss to the Panthers, H-H proved they were a tournament team to note in the SOL American, as they crowned three champions with seven finalists and three consolation bracket champs. Bonus points were the difference as well for the Warriors as Quakertown crowned six champs with their seven finalists. H-H also wrestled back two wrestlers who finished 4th with Austin Jaffe at 170-pounds and heavyweight Tristan Long to advance the most wrestlers from the American.
Brad Mallon captured his second league title in a row, winning the 145-pound title decking the Panthers Jake Wheeler in the second period in 3:27. 2017 H-H state qualifier Nick Chapman also netted his second back-to-back league title with a fall of his own at 220 in the first period over Cheltenham’s Shamar Browne. Logan Flynn was handed the 195-pound crown when Wissahickon’s Jon Keller medically forfeited to make it three bonus championship wins for
H-H. Runner-ups for H-H included Josh Kim (132), A.J. Vegas (138), Davis Wheeler (152) and Matt Needleman at 170-pounds. Big points came in the consi-finals for the Warriors as Sammy Negron (113), Grayson Smith (120) and C.J. Grier (182) all posted pins, earning bronze medals and giving H-H the team title with 228.5 points. First year H-H head coach Trent Mongillo said he “headed to bed, dreaming of a league championship” Friday night, and was grateful his team rewarded him by fulfilling the dream Saturday afternoon.
Quakertown looked impressive while trying to catch H-H in the finals after trailing by close to 30 points prior to the championship rounds, as they put six straight champs atop the podium. Kyle Miller started the Panther champion run at 106-pounds with a pin of PW's Dylan Moore (with apologies to Kyle Miller for initially posting the incorrect result). Corey Cope nipped Wissahickon’s freshman Matt Fritz 6-5 with a late score. Perhaps a surprise Panther winner in the 120-championship tilt, Vincent DeSpirito flattened Wissahickon’s Charlie Brammer early in the third period to grab bonus points for Quakertown. But it was an impressive effort by Josh Stahl at 126-pounds, avenging an earlier season loss to P-W’s Marco DiBattista, winning 5-2, that had the Panthers rolling. Stahl earned the Outstanding Wrestler Award of the tournament with his controlling victory between these two state qualifiers.
Then the Panthers’ freshmen phenoms Domenic DeFalco and Patrick McCoy recorded their first league titles respectfully at 132 and 138-pounds over H-H wrestlers, capping off the Panthers’ title run. But it wasn’t enough to catch the Warriors as Kyle Miller finished 2nd at 106, and both Kyle Goodwin (160) and Ray Martin (220) finished 3rd for the Panthers for their 211 team points. The Panthers will have nine wrestlers competing at the D1 East Championships.
Plymouth-Whitmarsh finished in 3rd place with 180.5 points in the team race, the same finish the Colonials had in the dual league team standings, thus Q-town, H-H and P-W finished one-two-three in both duals and tournament standings. The Colonials advance 10 wrestlers towards the Giant Center in Hershey, PA. Zach Fisher (160) and Paolo DiSanto (285) captured titles. In perhaps the most exciting battle of the finals, Fisher escaped and executed a quick double-leg takedown toss on H-H’s Matt Needleman to win a 10-7 scrambler at the buzzer, after Needleman had a third period lead.
A surprise move by DiBattista, bumping up to 126-pounds from a stacked 120-pound weight class, looked to be a good move initially for him and will now require some hard work as Stahl, Truman’s Gunner Fuss (1st), Colton Jordan (Neshaminy-2nd), Braden Ricchini (CR South-3rd) and CR North’s Sammy Hayes 4th are all coming out of the SOL National. Add in the Continental’s Sam Beckett (Souderton) and Tennent’s Anthony Colella, and you have a beast of a weight class here. CR North’s Luke Lucerne dropped down to 113-pounds as he looks to medal again in Chocolate Town, USA, as he won the National title here over Neshaminy freshman Zack Martin 3-0. Martin disposed of state power at this weight, Max Mendez (CRS) in the semis 8-6.
The SOL’s lightweights are phenomenal, and they will battle it out all the way through districts, regions, and states. Council Rock North’s Kyle Hauserman rocked CRS stud Kyle Waterman 3-1 in the National Conference final at 106-pounds to create a potential best of three here between two of the states’ best wrestlers at the weight.
Council Rock South outdistanced both Neshaminy (2nd-167.5 points) and CR North (3rd-144.5 pts) in the National Conference team race. Six of the seven schools had at least one champion, CRN had the most with four titles, as Hauserman, Lucerne, along with Cam Robinson at 138-pounds and Dillon Sheehy (152) finished atop the podium. Hauserman, Robinson and Sheehy all defeated neighborhood rivals from CR South in Waterman, Eric Woloshyn and Cole Flanagan respectively. The CRS Golden Hawks advanced 13 wrestlers to next Saturday’s D1 East tilt, the most of any SOL school. Neshaminy matched H-H with 12 qualifiers, led by champs Jackson Erb at 145 and Gunner Spain (160). CRS had champions in Shane Hanson-Ashworth (120), Ben Radner (132) and Nik Korbich at 170-pounds. Bensalem crowned two heavies in John Klewin (220) and Nick Cooper (285). Truman’s Alex Litz was the champ at 195 decking the Golden Hawks Giani Gilch in 3:33.
In the Continental, it was all North Penn as the Knights pocketed six total titles with Eddie Galang (106), Eric Laughlin (152), Patrick O’Neill (160), Reid Dentner (170), Owen Verespy (220) and Ryan Cody (285) on their way to the team title to validate their regular season dual title. They Knights will take 11 wrestlers on to districts. Pennridge’s 182-pounder, the number one ranked wrestler in the state at this weight, was named the OW. Teammate Evan Widing was the champ at 145, winning a major decision over Souderton’s Connor Trowbridge 16-7.
Souderton had three grapplers place first in freshman Sam Beckett (126), Harrison Andrade (138) and Bruno Stolfi (195). Stolfi won a wild one over William Tennent’s Yusuf Aladinov 13-11. Tennent’s AJ Tamburrino continued his mission to garner a medal in Hershey, edging Souderton’s Tyler Williams 3-2 in the 132-pounds championship match.
NOTES: Hatboro-Horsham’s Nick Chapman earned his 100th career win in his semifinal 220-pound match with a fall, and then added to his season pin total of 30 with a fall in the finals.
The top four of each conference advanced to the D1 East Championships at Quakertown Sat. 2/24/18. The top four finishers at districts move on to the Southeast Regional at Oxford H.S. Districts is a 12-man bracket with preliminary round losers being eliminated. This will be the last year of the 3-district format. In 2019, there will be four “Super Districts,” with all wrestlers competing at Districts to advance to a 16-man bracket at regionals. Please note Springfield Township wrestlers all advance to the AA District tournament, thus the SOL Conference wrestles thru 5th place, to assure advancement for four AAA grapplers to districts.
- Log in to post comments
