By Alex Frazier
Meet…Zak MyszaCentral Buck East’s Zak Mysza is a relative newcomer to wrestling.
Most kids work their way through youth programs beginning when they’re five or six.
Not Mysza.
While others kids were doing that, he was playing baseball.
It wasn’t until ninth grade that he considered wrestling.
“I was talking to my parents and decided I wanted to try wrestling out,” he said. “I had some success and stuck with it.”
His first year he wrestled for Holicong Middle School. As a sophomore he saw some varsity time, finishing with a 6-11 mark.
“It was a good learning experience, my first year,” he said.
He parlayed that experience into a successful junior year, qualifying for districts and finishing with a 17-12 record.
“I worked a little harder last year,” he said. “I wanted to do the best I could do.”
This year, as coach Dave Scarpill says, “He’s a beast.”
Mysza has won the Wetzel Holiday Classic and the Dallastown Invitational tournaments and is 14-2 in his first 16 bouts, losing only to Souderton’s Joe McNamara and Father Judge’s Jeremy Reith.
He was just recently promoted to captain along with Nick Dau.“He wasn’t officially named, but he’s taken on the duties,” said Scarpill. “He’s a big help to Nick. He’s Nick’s lieutenant.”
“Coach Chen told me before the Hatboro match to go out with Nick,” said Mysza. “I was excited for that. I try to set an example for the younger kids. I don’t want them to goof off when they shouldn’t be. I want to try to instill some kind of work ethic in them.”
Having already been captain of East’s football team, it is a position Mysza has experience with.
“I loved it,” he said. “I liked having all that responsibility. Each Thursday or Friday before the game, we would have a curfew and I would have to call a quarter of the team. I liked having everybody look up to me. It was a good experience.”
Mysza was a first team all-league guard on the Patriots’ football team. For Mysza football and wrestling have been perfect complements.
“To be a heavyweight you don’t have to know a lot of moves, you need to know balance,” said Scarpill. “That’s the key to success in football. He already had that ability.”
Balance was also something he learned in wrestling.
“On the mat if you can feel a guy trying to throw you or using his hips, you get that kind of feel when you’re out playing football,” he said. “Balance and all that stuff ties in.”
At 265, he has good size for a heavyweight, and he uses that to his advantage.
“Ride a kid, bundle him up, try for a half and just lay on him,” said Scarpill of Mysza’s strategy.
Of his 14 wins, six have come by fall. He has had three overtime bouts and won two of them.
In overtime his chances are good, as Scarpill explained, “He knows how to get out quick and he knows how to ride.”
Ironically enough, Mysza thinks wrestling is tougher than football.
“The physical toll it takes on my body makes wrestling harder,” he said. “Wrestling a tournament feels like playing 10 football games. It takes so much more of a physical toll because you’re using every single muscle in your body.”
As far as technique goes, both sports are similar.“Wrestling you have to learn the move, how to use it and when to use it,” he said. “The same thing applies to football. When you’re pass blocking, you have to know what kind of techniques you want to use. When you drive block, you have to make sure your hips are low and you’re firing your arms out.
“Mentally it’s the same way, too. There’s so much prep that goes into a football game, but there’s also a lot of prep that goes into your personal wrestling match.”
One main difference is that wrestling is an individual rather than a team sport.
“I like that a lot,” he said. “If you lose, you can’t point your finger at someone else. You have to take responsibility for your own action; whereas in football, 11 guys have to work at once to win.”
Mysza also breaks the prototypical image of a wrestler.
“He’s as nice as they come,” said Scarpill. “He’s respectful, personable. You can have a conversation with the kid. He’s a friendly gentleman.”
Also not a bad student. He carries a 3.6 GPA.
Next year Mysza will probably play football in college, particularly if he goes to a D-III school. He has applied to Franklin and Marshall and Ithaca. He has also been accepted at the University of West Virginia and has an application in at James Madison, both of which are D-1 schools.
He plans on majoring in business.
During the past few summers, Mysza has umpired youth baseball at the Doylestown Athletic Association.
“I love it,” he said. “It’s a way to re-live my baseball days.”
Mysza is off to a great start in his final year of wrestling, but there’s still a lot of season left to go.
“I’m happy,” he said. “I’m not taking anything for granted. I’m determined every single day. I don’t want to take anything for granted and rest on my laurels. I won’t settle for anything but the best.”
Kiefer reaches milestone – Last Saturday at the Avon Grove Devil Duals, Pennsbury coach Joe Kiefer reached a giant milestone, achieving his 400th win as the Falcons’ coach.Entering the tournament with 398 wins, he won his 399th in the first match, a 50-21 win over Penncrest, and notched his historic win 42-34 over Pottsgrove in the second match.
Kiefer is now on target to be the winningest male team coach at Pennsbury when he surpasses a former baseball coach who has 403.
Kiefer was also the winningest coach in soccer when he led the Falcons for 13 seasons. But he was surpassed by John Sheenan.
Kiefer’s best season came in 1992, when his team won section, district and regional titles and placed in the top 12 at states. Even more significant, his son Kip became the first Pennsbury wrestler to claim a state championship.
Kiefer’s other state champion was Chuckie Connor in 1996.
As an athlete himself, Kiefer played soccer and wrestled at Bethlehem Catholic High School and continued in both sports at Wilkes College.
He credits his high school and college coaches, both of whom are Pennsylvania Hall of Fame inductees, for serving as role models.“I had some good coaches,” he said.
He has been coaching ever since his college days when he started with youth baseball.
After 43 years of coaching, 25 as head wrestling coach, Kiefer will step down after this season. He has already been retired from teaching/counseling at Pennsbury since 2003.
“I wanted to do it for a few years, but it’s turned out to be eight,” he said.
Fully retired next year, Kiefer plans to spend time traveling the country to visit his sons and seven grandsons. Kip is in Colorado, Joe is in Arizona and Kory is in State College.
Panthers celebrate 400 – On December 11, 2010, Quakertown recorded its program’s 400th victory. Appropriately the Panthers did it on their home mat, defeating Neshaminy 39-36.
Quakertown has had six coaches since the program’s inception in 1959.
Current coach Kurt Handel, a two-time regional qualifier at Quakertown back in the late 1980s, has been at the helm for the past nine years.
Dave Evans holds the record for most years as head coach with 20 in two separate stints. Handel is second in line, with this being his 10th season. Evans also holds the best record at 203-106-1 with Handel second in the record books with a 109-42 mark thus far.
The 400-wins mark has come fairly quickly especially considering the Panthers didn’t have their first winning season until the program was 18 years old. In their first 17 years, they were 44-145.
In 1977 Quakertown went 11-3 after a miserable 3-10 mark in each of the previous two years.
The Panthers are now on a 10-year streak of winning seasons. The best teams record-wise were in the mid-80s.
The ’85 team was 16-1, the ’86 was 15-1, the ’87 was 15-2 and the 1988 team went 14-1.
During that stretch, Quakertown produced two of its three state champions in John Rittenhouse and John Hangey. The third, Pat Flynn, won states in 2003.
The team that holds the record for most wins in a season was the 2008 squad that went 21-7.
Overall, the program is 405-354-4.
Around the league –
• Hatboro-Horsham’s Matt Harkins won the 125-pound championship at the Dallastown Invitational going 5-0 to up his season record to a perfect 19-0.
Brad Humski finished second at 130 going 3-2.
• At the Zephyr Duals in Whitehall, Pennridge 103-pounder Scott Parker, Ben Ross (112) and CJ Moyer (119) all went undefeated. Interestingly, they are all freshman and small for their weight class. Parker weighs 94, Ross is 106 and Moyer is 113.
• At the Avon Grove Devil Duals, Pennsbury’s Josh Disanto (125), Conlan Cornman (171) and Josh Caven (189) all went a perfect 5-0. Anthony DiEmidio (112) finished at 3-0.
• Norristown Area took first place at the Gauntlet Tournament at Blue Mountain High School, finishing with 110 points. Host Blue Mountain finished in second with 83 points. Plymouth-Whitemarsh finished tied for fourth.
The Eagles crowned five champions: Zach Fuentes (103), Tyree Gardner (112), Brandon Parker (152), Larry Gordon (215) and Gavin Queenan (285). Second place medals went to Kelvin Howard (112), Doug Forlano (130), Mikey Springer (140), Brett Harner, (160), Tyler Letrinko, (171) and Juan Carbajal (189). Joe Rowland (135) finished third.
Fuentes (15-0) and Parker (17-0) are the Eagles undefeated wrestlers.
• Zak Mysza of Central Bucks East was the 285-pound champion at the Dallastown Invitational on Saturday. He is now 14-2. Mike Laurinaitis (119) and Nick Dau (145) both placed second. Dau is now17-2.
Top Five SOL
1. Council Rock South
2. Norristown
3. Quakertown
4. Souderton
5. Upper Moreland
Top Guns
103—Tommy Stokes, Bensalem
112—Trey Balasco, Council Rock South
119—Kevin Flack, William Tennent
125—Matt Harkins, Hatboro-Horsham
130—John Dutrow, Council Rock North
135—Matt Rappo, Council Rock South
140—Lucas Wisniewski, Plymouth Whitemarsh
145—Matt Martoccio, Council Rock South
152—Brandon Parker, Norristown
160—Brett Harner, Norristown
171—John Staudenmayer, Plymouth Whitemarsh
189—John Bolich, Upper Moreland
215—Joe Stolfi, Souderton
285—Joe McNamara, Souderton
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