No. 3 South Fayette wrestling takes down No. 6 Quaker Valley

By: HSSN Staff
Wednesday, January 17, 2018 | 11:06 PM

A subsection title was on the line when two undefeated wrestling programs — South Fayette and Quaker Valley — squared off on the Lions' senior night Wednesday.

After losing two of the first three bouts of the night, the No. 3-ranked Lions rebounded to defeat the No. 6 Quakers, 51-18, in a Class AA, Section 3A match.

“It's a good win. That's a quality team,” South Fayette coach Rick Chaussard said. “They have some quality wins under their belt. We needed some testing before we got into next week.”

Both teams advanced to the Section 3-AA team tournament next Wednesday at Burrell, and both have clinched berths in the WPIAL team tournament.

Quaker Valley will face No. 1 Burrell and South Fayette will take on Valley in the Section 2 semifinals. The winners will then wrestle immediately after for the Section 2 title.

The bout of the night came at 170 pounds when Quaker Valley's Keegan Forsythe had a takedown at the buzzer to defeat South Fayette's Michael Dedi, 5-4.

“He works hard in the wrestling room and fought through the adversity and he came out on top,” QV coach Mike Heinl said. “He didn't stop wrestling. He set the pace.”

Forsythe, ranked No. 5 in Class AA, took a 2-1 advantage into the third period against Dedi, but Dedi tied the match at 2-2 with an escape as he started the third on the bottom.

A few moments later, Dedi took a 4-2 lead after a takedown. With 20 seconds remaining in the period, Forysthe earned a point for an escape to narrow the deficit to 4-3.

As Forysthe was pushing the pace to earn points, he gave it one more shot and was rewarded a takedown as the match ended.

“That's just my kid not using his mat awareness,” Chaussard said. “He relaxed for a second, and it cost him the match. He's a 160-pounder that we moved up to 170. I thought he wrestled very well except for the last 10 seconds.”

Quaker Valley's Geoff Magin, who is ranked No. 4 in Class AA, followed Forysthe's victory with a 15-5 major decision over South Fayette's Nicholas Carter at 182 pounds to give the Quakers an early 7-6 lead.

However, the Lions (9-1, 5-0 Section 3A) won the next three weight classes, including a 15-7 decision by Jake Walker at 220 and a pin by Quentin Franklin in the heavyweight bout, to take a 21-7 lead.

The Lions split the next four matches. No. 2-ranked Conner Redinger earned a win for the Quakers (8-5, 4-1) via a technical fall at 113, and No. 1 John Rocco Kazalas pinned the Lions' Luke Finestone at 1:14 in the 132-pound match.

The Lions Colin Dunn (120) and Gary Loeffler (126) earned pins in just over a minute in their matches.

“We are a disappointed by the outcome. South Fayette came prepared. We will be back to practice tomorrow. We have to change this. Some of these kids got to start to put the time in,” Heinl said. “You can see the South Fayette kids work hard and it pays off. It's our job to get these kids better. We're a young program, but we aren't where we want to be right now.”

South Fayette finished with three pins by Eli Brinsky (138), Dalton Hirt (145) and Michael Custick (152).

Brinsky is ranked second at 138, while Custick wrestled up a weight class but is ranked third at 145.

Both teams will participate in the Allegheny County Tournament this Friday and Saturday at Fox Chapel.

Andrew John is freelance writer.

Tags: Quaker Valley, South Fayette