Plum senior on track for first title; Kiski’s Oravec sets record<\/p>\n
Saturday, March 12, 2005
By David Assad, Tri-State Sports & News Service<\/p>\n
HERSHEY, Pa. — It has been a case of “been there, done that “for 125-pound Plum senior Sean Clair after two days at the PIAA Class AAA wrestling tournament at the Giant Center.<\/p>\n
Clair advanced to the semifinals for the third consecutive year after a 4-3 decision yesterday against Eric Albright of Red Lion.<\/p>\n
Clair (39-1) wants to avoid a “been there, done that “episode in the semifinals. He has lost in the semifinals the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
Clair has emerged as the favorite to claim the 125-pound title after two-time PIAA runner-up Seth Ciasulli of Easton was upset, 4-3, by State College’s Kyle Fluke in the first round Thursday. Also gone from the winner’s bracket is Steve Mytych of Northampton, a pretournament co-favorite with Ciasulli.<\/p>\n
“This is my last shot at the title, “said Clair, who faces Fluke today in a semifinal match. “I really want it this time. I don’t feel I’m any greater or less than anyone else. It’s whoever wants it more that day. Everyone is at the same level. It’s whoever has the better mind-set when they walk out on the mat. There’s not a bad wrestler here.”<\/p>\n
Clair’s victory against Albright (36-2) was not pretty. Holding a 3-2 lead, Clair rode Albright for all but eight seconds of the third period before deliberately letting him escape. Clair was given a 4-2 lead late in the match after a third caution was called on Albright for moving before the referee’s whistle on restarts.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always been nervous about the semifinal up here, but I’m not going to do that this year, “Clair said. “I refuse to let it happen.”<\/p>\n
Here are other notable PIAA Class AAA semifinalists from the WPIAL:<\/p>\n
Gateway sophomore Jay Ivanco became the first Gateway wrestler since Ryan Lang in 1993 to reach the semifinals. Ivanco (39-1) scored a 4-0 win against Chuck Mulloy of Penncrest in the quarterfinals. Ivanco’s only loss this season was to senior Chris Neidermeier of Waynesburg, who was upset in the quarterfinals on a second-period fall against Chris Sheetz of Upper Perkiomen.<\/p>\n
Kiski Area senior Tyler Oravec earned a 10-3 decision against Paul Girafalco of Downingtown East, giving Oravec his 48th victory to break the WPIAL single-season record held by Steve Peperak of Connellsville in 1983.<\/p>\n
Two-time reigning PIAA champion Donnie Jones, a Greensburg Salem senior, earned a 5-3 decision against Thad Frick of Nazareth at 152. Jones’ expected championship showdown tonight with another two-time PIAA champion, Joey Ecklof of Northampton, is still in line after Ecklof won in overtime in his quarterfinal match against Travis Uncapher of Greensburg Central Catholic, 2-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Plum senior on track for first title; Kiski’s Oravec sets record Saturday, March 12, 2005By David Assad, Tri-State Sports & News Service HERSHEY, Pa. — It has been a case of “been there, done that “for 125-pound Plum senior Sean Clair after two days at the PIAA Class AAA wrestling tournament at the Giant Center. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-eE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}