Kiski Area cruises past Owen J. Roberts in PIAA Class AAA 1st-round match
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Thursday, February 7, 2019 | 10:57 PM
HERSHEY — A couple Kiski Area wrestlers who usually win didn’t Thursday during the first round of the PIAA Class AAA team tournament at the Giant Center.
Even after those defeats, though, the Cavaliers showed all the other challengers that it will take a great team effort to defeat them.
The WPIAL champion Cavaliers, No. 2 in the Trib HSSN state rankings, had no problem rolling over Owen J. Roberts, 50-12.
Several wrestlers came up big for the Cavaliers.
Julian Jones started the match with an impressive 6-0 win over Josh Jackson at 113 pounds. Dom Giordano followed with a 7-2 victory against David Forrest to make it 6-0.
Darren Miller (126) continued his dominant season with a technical fall win to make to 11-0. And when Sammy Starr pinned Zach Englehardt (132), Owen J. Roberts was starring at a 17-0 deficit.
Kiski Area’s Enzo Morlacci (145), Cam Connor (152) and Nick Delp (170) all dropped hard-fought bouts.
“It was pretty evenly-matched in the middle,” Kiski Area coach Chris Heater said. “I thought a lot of the guys wrestled really well. We have experience and some youth. It was a good opening round win for us.”
Owen J. Roberts won three consecutive bouts to trim the Cavs lead to 17-9, but Jack Blumer (170) stopped the run with a pin of Connor Quinn, who was undefeated.
“I knew Cam and I were going to get (Daniel Mancini) and the other would get a good kid,” Blumer said. “I was able to get to my stuff and was comfortable out there.
“Our team knows what we have to do. Normally, we get the most points, but the lightweights came through.”
After Owen J. Roberts made it 23-12, the Cavs went back to work and put the match away. Dylan Mullen blanked Matt Karcewski at 182, Brayden Roscosky got a pin at 195, Troy Kuhn received a forfeit at 220, Stone Joseph got a pin at heavyweight and Antonio Giordano ended the match with a pin at 106.
Kiski Area (16-0) advanced to face District 10 champion Cathedral Prep in the quarterfinals at 2 p.m. Friday.
“We’ve been preparing for the match,” Heater said. “We’ll look a little more. They have a very good team.”
Paul Schofield is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paul at pschofield@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Schofield_Trib.
Tags: Kiski School
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