Andy Close
SHARON, Pa. – It was a good day for Warren County wrestling at the District 10 Class 2A championships, as Eisenhower’s Cael Black and Gannon Jaquay, as well as Youngsville’s Ian Mancuso and Logan McDonald moved on to the Northwest Regional with top eighth finishes.
Black garnered a third-place effort at 215, while Jaquay was fifth at 152. Mancuso and McDonald both finished eighth at 120 and 145 respectively.
“We always talk about advancing to the next week and that’s the biggest thing is getting to that next week,” said Eisenhower coach Kris Black. “Next week is where we want to be in regionals so you have a chance to get to that state tournament. I mean you always want to finish on top, that’s a given, but, you know at this point in time a lot of different things happen. You’ve just got to move on to the next thing and worry about what’s in front of you.”
Black and Jaquay both advanced to the semifinals with their efforts on Friday. Once there, Black dropped a hard-fought 3-2 decision to familiar foe Hayden Linkerhof of Corry, who went on to earn a pin in the finals.
Jaquay, meanwhile, was tech falled with two seconds remaining in his semifinal bout with eventual champion, unbeaten Hunter Hohman of Grove City.
The loss was the first of the season for Black, who bounced back in impressive fashion, earning a 20-5 tech fall over Porter Brooks of Saegertown and followed that up with a 5-2 decision over Brayden McCloskey of Reynolds in the third-place match.
“Sometimes a loss like that, you might expect it to really put a guy down, but it can also wake a guy up and really motivate him for the following week,” Black said of the Linkerhof match. “For Cael to come back and tech a kid, that was good. He really got his offense going. And that last match, the kid really didn’t want to engage too much and he (Cael) kept his composure, so I thought that was good.”
Jaquay, meanwhile, dropped into the fifth-place match after getting pinned in the third period by Clay Thomas of Union City. He rallied, however, earning an impressive 8-0 decision over Luke Gentile of Greenville.
“To have a loss in the semis and then lose again in the next match, it’s tough to get back up and you see so many guys that go from that semifinal loss right to sixth-place because they can’t rebound,” coach Black said. “There are no easy matches here. Everybody’s here for a reason. The Gentile boy is a tough kid and Gannon came out and dominated and looked good doing it.”
Mancuso got to the seventh-place match courtesy of a pair of pins, in the second period against Soor Patel of Hickory, followed by a first-period triumph against Jake Bennett of Fort LeBoeuf.
“Right now we’re doing black flips and handsprings,” said Youngsville coach David Myers. “I get a second and a third-year wrestler and both of them are exceeding expectations right now as we speak I mean yeah, they come out of here with eighth-place finishes, but they wrestled solid this weekend. For us, it’s a good building block.”
McDonald earned a 5-2 decision over Eli Buck of Sharon before injury defaulting.
“Ian has just grown more confident,” Myers said. “He’s trying new things, trying to build to his repertoire. He’s a second-year wrestler and he’s still in the learning period.
“Logan has let things slow down a little bit,” Myers added. “He was seeing things in warp speed and missing things at the beginning of the season and now he’s seeing the full field. He’s wrestling solid.”
The regional is back at Sharon on Friday and Saturday.
