Bison Wrestlers Win on Criteria H

Jessica Shirey, Team Reporter
January 31, 2012

CURWENSVILLE – The Clearfield wrestling team experienced the devastation of watching the Golden Tide wrestlers and fans celebrate their third-ever win in 55 tries Tuesday night at Patton Hall. But that celebration was short-lived, and the Bison went home with their history still intact.

Minutes after the battle ended deadlocked at 37-37, referee Bob Colgan proclaimed Curwensville the winner on Criteria E, or most six-point wins, including falls, forfeits, defaults and disqualifications. The Golden Tide wrestlers erupted; their fans cheered. Colgan made his way through the celebration to the locker room, where he was getting ready to leave the school.

Clearfield head coach Jeff Aveni and his staff observed an error when reviewing the scorebook and retrieved Colgan from the locker room to reevaluate his decision. He and Curwensville head coach Duane Wriglesworth flanked Colgan with their scorebooks open. The Clearfield faithful waited as the scorebooks underwent further review, as Golden Tide fans filtered out of the gymnasium, believing the home team had won.

Several minutes later, Colgan overturned his previous decision and declared Clearfield the winner by Criteria H, or most first points scored in the 12 contested bouts. The Bison snuck by with a 13-9 edge for its third victory of the season.

The squads split the bouts while also having five, six-point wins apiece. Each posted a major decision and decision at critical points in the highly-contested dual meet.

“We knew it was going to be close. There were a lot of great bouts. We had a lot of kids who matched up ability-wise,” Aveni said. “We had to convince our kids to rely on our conditioning, and I felt we did that in a lot of weight classes.

“If you look where we really got whacked, we got whacked in the first period. But we lasted until the third period, and we were winning the match. We had big step-ups there from Wyatt Stucke, Noah Cline, Garrett Timko, Kody Hepfer, who were just rising to the occasion and getting the job done.”

The dual meet came down to the final bout at 106 pounds, where Cline and Sam Bressler clashed in an individual rivalry. Cline headed into the bout staring up at the scoreboard, which showed his team trailing 37-33. He needed a major decision to tie and a technical fall or pin for a Clearfield victory and had never beaten Bressler in his career.

Cline dumped Bressler for a 2-0 advantage after one. In the second, Cline switched for a reversal and then Bressler escaped, making it 4-1 heading into the final period.

Aware he needed to accrue points, Cline opted to take-him-down and let-him-up twice, using two dumps for an 8-2 lead and catching him for three backs after the second one. Bressler escaped with 27 seconds remaining in the bout, but Cline fended him off for the major.

“I’ve wrestled him a few times before. He’s always beaten me like 8-0, 5-0,” Cline said, admitting he was nervous about the decisive bout. “I looked up at the scoreboard and knew I had to get a pin or tech fall to win and a major to tie.

“There was definitely some pressure going out there, but I had confidence and knew I could beat him. I just went out and wrestled my best, and it feels really good since it was a kid I’d never beaten before.”

“That’s a match that Noah wanted. He’s never beaten that kid before. Bressler’s beaten him every time they’ve ever wrestled. We’ve been telling Noah all year how much better he’s gotten. I think tonight he realized it,” Aveni said.

“That was a big match for Noah. We considered going to 113 at the beginning, but I felt that at this point in the season, I need Noah to have his confidence. He needs to have his confidence going into districts and to realize how much he’s improved from last year at junior Olympics to this year right now. I think he proved it to himself tonight. That was a 6-2 bout last year at JOs, and he lost it. He’s changed it into a major decision. He controlled the match. He controlled the tempo. I’m very proud of Noah Cline.”

The dual meet got under way at 113 pounds, where Curwensville’s Travis Lansberry received a forfeit, which followed by a 9-0 major decision from Tyler Mays, giving the Golden Tide an early 10-0 advantage.

However, Bison junior Christian Stone put his team on the board at 126 pounds, engineering an 11-2 lead before cranking Brandon Sass over for the fall. The end came 39 seconds into the second period. The Golden Tide quickly countered in the next bout with a fall from Jake Keller in just 25 seconds.

Clearfield went on a five-bout winning streak from 138 pounds through 170 pounds. The Bison swapped a 16-6 deficit for a 33-16 lead with five bouts remaining.

Junior Dylan Graham began the stretch, winning a 5-2 battle over Trey McKenzie at 138 pounds. Graham used a pair of takedowns and an escape in his win. Then, Stucke was the first of a quartet of falls.

Stucke trailed Alex Holt, 5-2, heading into the final period. Starting in the neutral position, he took down Holt before cradling him for the pin at the 4:59 mark. Teammate Nolan Barger locked up a cradle of his own at 152 pounds, disposing of Dakota Royer in 50 seconds. Barger pushed his team out in front for the first time with the scoreboard reading, 21-16.

Hepfer and Timko, who had combined for just six wins heading into the dual meet, scored much needed bonus points for the Bison. Hepfer’s bout with Austin Pollick was locked up at one when he pinned Pollick with just 13 seconds left in the contest.

Timko used three takedowns to build a 7-1 advantage over Nathan Wriglesworth before turning his Golden Tide opponent for the fall. The end came with one second remaining in the middle period.

“Those guys work hard. They’re nice kids. I’ve been nice to them. I’ve yelled at them. I’ve tried everything, and they just kind of look at me the same way. We’ve really pushed and challenged them the last few weeks. Now, they’re starting to believe in themselves,” Aveni said.

Curwensville’s Chad Desmett won by forfeit at 182, while Jake Kavelak came away with a fall in 1:57 in the next bout. However, Bison Devin Sinclair nearly pinned Kavelak first after hitting a headlock. Kavelak rolled through though, reversing and pinning Sinclair.

Ricky Magnuson gave the Golden Tide a one-point lead, 34-33, with his fall in 1:56 at 220 pounds. At heavyweight, Curwensville’s Brad Stubbs used a second-period takedown and escape to upend Jordan Lancaster, 3-1, and to give his team a 37-33 lead with one bout left.

“I was very confident when we were putting Jordan Lancaster and Noah Cline on the mat. Jordan just had some bad luck. I feel terrible for him. I thought he was very capable of winning that match. I know he wanted to win that match,” Aveni said.

Clearfield improved to 3-11 overall with the win.

“When you’re down, people talk. We’ve heard so many things. The kids have heard so much like you don’t want to be the only team to lose to Curwensville and Punxsutawney in the same year,” Aveni said.

“They’ve worked for this. I felt the guys stuck together. We may only have 15 guys here. But these 15 guys have stuck together and have weathered the storm. Just because we have been losing, they didn’t quit and go home. They’ve been showing up, and we’ve been beating the snot out of them every day.”

Aveni continued, “They’re willing to step up, come to practice to work hard and to battle. I felt that we were wrestling better in the room than we were on the mat. I felt we tried harder in the room than we did on the mat . . . So, I said, ‘we have to make it hotter in this mat room than it is up in that gym. We just turned up the pace in the mat room. They’ve been hard practicing. We’ve got to push through it.”

Clearfield has wrestled Curwensville 55 times with the cross-town rivalry dating back to the first-ever dual meet on Feb. 28, 1957. In the final dual meet that season, the Bison defeated the Golden Tide, 36-6. Clearfield currently leads the overall dual meet series with 53 wins to just two losses.

Curwensville defeated the Bison, 22-20, in 1961 in front of 1,300 fans. Former Clearfield wrestler and then Curwensville head coach John Palmer had been hospitalized when his team informed him of their win. Curwensville didn’t manage another win until the 1996 season when they upended the Bison, 33-29.

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