Northwest Regional Update: Collins to Finals; Chamberlain and Fegert State Qualifiers

Sharon — After day one of the PIAA AA North West Regional Championships, the Clearfield Bison were in first place with five semifinalists and the Curwensville Golden Tide were in 13th place with one semifinalist.

After the smoke cleared at the end of Saturday’s first session Clearfield’s Brady Collins was the lone finalist and teammate Carter Chamberlain and the Tide’s Nik Fegert will join him in Hershey for the PIAA AA State Championships next weekend after reaching Saturday evening’s third place medal match.

The Bison are now in third place, a point and a half behind third place Reynolds. Fort LeBoeuf is in first place with 108.5 points on the strength of their four finalists. Curwensville is tied for 19th with Titusville with 25 points.

Round one of consolations went very well for the Bison as they went 3-0 with Cash Diehl at 107, Colton Ryan at 127, and Colton Bumbarger at 133 all picking up wins. The Tide went 2-1 with Ryder Kuklinskie at 133 and Logan Aughenbaugh at 160 advancing. Dylan Dellucia saw his sophomore season come to an end with a 23-11 record and a 1-2 record in the regional tournament.

Clearfield went 3-0 in the second round of wrestlebacks as well, assuring all eight Bison a top-6 finish in the tourney. The Tide didn’t fair as well as both Kuklinski and Aughenbaugh were eliminated. Kuklinskie finished his junior year with a 15-8 record and will take a 44-21 career record into his senior year. Aughenbaugh, also a junior, finished his season with a team best 32-11 record and has a career mark of 62-25 going into his final season.

The teams went a combined 1-5 in the semifinals, the lone win being Collins’ 13-3 major decision over Cranberry’s Dane Wenner at 139. Collins (34-3) will meet Wyatt Lazzar (36-4), a junior from Commodore Perry in Saturday night’s championship final.

Bryndin Chamberlain at 114, Evan Davis at 121, Ty Aveni and Fegert at 145, and Carter Chamberlain at 189 were all knocked into the consolation semifinals when they suffered semifinal losses.

The consy semis, known as the “blood round”, where the winners advance to the state championships with their top-4 finish and the losers fall to the fifth place match saw the locals go 2-6.

Fegert secured the Tide’s lone state championship spot with a narrow 3-2 win over Johnsonburg’s Avery Bittler (29-13). Fegert (29-12) will face St. Marys wrestler Jaden Wehler (27-10) in the broze medal match. Wehler, the District 9 champion, defeated Fegert 6-5 in last week’s district semifinals.

Chamberlain will join Collins at states after his 3-2 win over Brayden McCloskey (34-14) of Reynolds. Chamberlain (34-6) has a rematch in the consy finals. His opponent will be Fort LeBoeuf’s Ryan Welka (22-9), whom Chamberlain defeated 9-2 in Friday’s quarterfinals.

All of Clearfield’s “Fab 4” freshman fell one win short of qualifying for the state tourney, but all will wrestle for fifth place Saturday evening. They are Diehl (29-12), Bryndin Chamberlain (23-16), Ryan (24-15), and Bumbarger (19-19). Evan Davis (26-10) hopes that the third time is a charm in his quest for his 100th career win.

Aveni is receiving a forfeit in his medal match, so he will finish his sophomore campaign with a fifth place regional placing, a season record of 24-12, and a career record of 39-24 heading into his junior season.

Finals Matchups/Results courtesy PA-Wrestling.com: