Dec 10, 2014 4 min read

Maybe it was because of the early schedule date for this dual meet, or that the team was coming off a tough weekend tournament or the holiday season is becoming more of a distracting force.

Jason Cardillo couldn’t put his finger on why Canon-McMillan High School’s wrestling team had a sluggish performance Wednesday night.

And the Big Macs won by 28 points, 49-21.

Not only that, but the victory came against rival Trinity in the Hillers’ gymnasium and in front of a good crowd.

“We were a little off,” said Cardillo, the Big Macs head coach. “A couple of our guys are still getting adjusted to their weights. We looked good at (the Cumberland Valley Tournament) so maybe that had something to do with it. I don’t know. For a lot of these kids, this is the first 7:30 match they wrestled at night.”

It was the Section 4-A opener for both of these Class AAA teams. And the Big Macs were aided by three forfeits from Trinity because of injuries.

“We weren’t sure what was (going to happen) in a couple weights,” said Cardillo.

Trinity head coach Mark Powell didn’t understand why his wrestlers seemed to lack a spark.

“I put that on me,” he said. “We just didn’t have a lot of emotion. This match was always emotional for me. We can be a pretty good wrestling team, but not when we come out flat.”

Canon-McMillan jumped out early and never allowed Trinity to get back into the bout.

Freshman Logan Macri, whose brother Dalton was a PIAA champion last year, began the bout at 106 with a pin of Evan Parkinson in 1:49.

Trinity’s Michael Kolosky cut the lead in half with a 9-3 decision over Dmitri Pihiou at 113 but Tim Hritsko and Ellis Popiolkowksi followed with pins at 120 and 126, respectively, to make it a 16-point lead, 18-3. Matt Oblock took a 10-0 major decision over Ryan Yocum to make it 22-0.

“When I pulled the 106 pill (to mark the starting weight of the dual meet), I was happy,” Cardillo said. “Logan wrestles with a lot of energy and I knew we would get the momentum.”

Powell said he didn’t mind starting at that weight, but was disappointed the Hillers failed to perform better.

“I thought we could run the table from 113 to 138,” he said. “It didn’t happen that way.”

When Micah Kusturis pinned Dawson Leavines in 1:00 at 152, Canon-McMillan held a 28-9 lead. Trinity forfeited three of the next four to hand over 18 team points and fall behind 46-15.

Junior Ben Johnson, who weighed in at 182, couldn’t go because he is not completely healed from suffering a fractured vertebrae and Josh During, also a junior, weighed in at 195 but isn’t 100 percent from two hairline fractures he suffered before the football season.

“He played football with two fractured legs,” said Powell. “That’s how tough a kid he is. Ben should be back sometime during the season but we don’t know when.”

The schedule doesn’t get any easier for Canon-McMillan, which heads to the Ironman Tournament near Akron this weekend, hosts Chartiers Valley Monday and travels to Erie to take on General McLane Tuesday.

“I just hope we don’t get too beat up,” he said. “We’ll get through this and regroup. We have to mentally prepared for Ironman.”

Justin Ritter (170) and Robert West (220) each had pins for the Hillers. … Trinity honored former head coach Joe Shook with its first Guts, Attitude and Loyalty award. He was presented a plaque at the middle of the mat. Shook was a two-time PIAA champion and had a 121-19-1 record as head coach of the Hillers. He coached 47 section champions, 14 WPIAL champions and six state champions.