Hickory, Fort LeBoeuf and Corry advance to states out of wild District 10 wrestling meet

SHARON — It was a District 10 Class 2A team wrestling tournament like no other with a champion like none before.

Hickory, which before Saturday never advanced to a championship final in the meet's 24-year history, won the title with a 44-27 victory over the Fort LeBoeuf Bison.

The Hornets not only defeated the tournament's top-seeded team, but also beat one of only two programs that accomplished what coach Nick Clepper and his wrestlers did this weekend at Sharon High School.

LeBoeuf and the Reynolds Raiders, whose nine-year district reign and district-record, five-year PIAA tournament reign ended Saturday, were the only D-10 small-school champions before then.

"I kind of forgot about that," Clepper said. "We're still going to go (to Hershey) and try to win as many (duals) as we can for this great season."

The Hornets were led by defending state champion Louie Gill, just a sophomore, freshman Dylan O'Brien and veterans such as Carter Gill, Cody Miller, Connor Saylor and Ty Holland

Hickory (12-2) will make its state debut in the main portion of this season's tournament.

The Hornets automatically advanced to Thursday's first round at Hershey. They'll face the winner of Monday's preliminary round dual between Montgomery, District 4's second seed, and West Perry, District 3's third seed.

Bison and Beavers get berths

LeBoeuf and Corry claimed the district's second and third PIAA invitations available during Saturday's action. Each must win Monday in order to join Hickory at the Giant Center in Hershey next weekend.

The Bison (13-4), despite their title round loss, will host Burgettstown at 7 p.m. The Blue Devils (14-1) were upset by Quaker Valley 36-35 in the semifinals of the WPIAL 2A tournament, but recovered to eliminate Mount Pleasant 43-20 in the third-place dual.

Coach Shane McChesney was proud LeBoeuf advanced as far as it did, given the team competed Saturday minus two of its significant starters.

Sophomore middleweight Conner McChesney, Shane McChesney's son, and junior upperweight Danny Church sat out the meet with injuries. Shane McChesney said they remain questionable for Monday's dual against Burgettstown.

"For our team to wrestle without those two and still make the final, I'm very proud of that," he said. "My biggest challenge was making sure we were ready without them. We made it known to (some of) the backups that they had to step up and get the team still believing in each other."

Corry eliminated Saegertown 37-28 in Saturday's third-place dual.

The Beavers (13-3) will travel to Tyrone (11-6) for Monday's 6 p.m. PIAA 2A opener against District 6's second seed. Forest Hills edged the Golden Eagles 36-34 in their championship dual on Saturday.

Corry experienced the longest route to the PIAA tournament among the district's three qualifiers.

The sixth-seeded Beavers had to beat Northwestern during last Wednesday's round-of-16 just to get into the quarterfinals. It was during that round Saturday Corry upset No. 3 Greenville 37-21.

A 36-25 semifinal loss to Hickory dropped Corry into the third-place dual. However, Saturday's 37-28 victory over Saegertown not only extended its season, but also avenged a 32-27 loss to the Panthers on Jan. 5.

That dual doubled as Travis Proper's first as coach of the Beavers. He was an assistant to Mark Munsee, who resigned after last season.

"I'm definitely proud of the kids (Saturday)," Proper said. "We were the (team) nobody was talking about. It was Greenville, Hickory, Fort LeBoeuf and Reynolds. Well, here's Corry. We felt like we had nothing to lose, so I told them that."

Extreme outcomes for Panthers

Saegertown was epitome of how unusually random Saturday's tournament was.

The Panthers' dual season ended even though they were responsible for ending Reynolds' lengthy district and PIAA title runs. They barely held on for a dramatic 34-32 quarterfinal victory vs. the Raiders, whose final record of 9-7 was an anomaly for one of the state's elite wrestling programs.

Reynolds, down 34-9, won the dual's last five matches. The Raiders would have recorded an all-time comeback had Vito Gentile been able to pin the Panthers' Keenan Schaaf in their 172-pound finale.

That nearly happened with 12 seconds left. Schaaf, though, was able to roll out of bounds, stop the clock and return to the neutral position.

Gentile won 13-1, but his major decision still left the Raiders two team points shy of tying the dual.

Had Gentile pinned Schaaf, Reynolds would have won based on the first tiebreaker, match victories. The Raiders won seven to Saegertown's six.

Contact Mike Copper at mcopper@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNcopper.

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Results for the District 10 Class 2A team wrestling tournament at Sharon. The top three teams advanced to the PIAA tournament:

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Third place

Championship

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: D-10 Class 2A champ Hickory advances to states with LeBoeuf, Corry