Feb 3, 2016 3 min read

CANONSBURG – Action was fast and furious during the WPIAL Class AAA Team Tournament quarterfinals matchup between Canon-McMillan and Latrobe Wednesday night with nine of the 14 bouts ending via pin.

Fortunately for Canon-Mac, the Big Macs recorded seven of those falls as they defeated Latrobe 48-26 to advance to the semifinals.

The Big Macs will meet Kiski Saturday (2 p.m.) at Penn Hills.

“I thought we wrestled well,” said Canon McMillan head coach Jason Cardillo. “We didn’t expect to get pinned the couple times we did. We needed to start wrestling and we did.”

C-M got things started with a pin from David Ainscough (220) and took a 9-0 lead when Brendan Furman (heavyweight) won a decision.

“David knew going into it that we were going to need some big points from him and he came through,” said Cardillo. “You need to get the points when you can get them and that was a spot we felt we could get some bonus points.”

Latrobe came right back and got a pin from Brady Sherback at 106. C-M’s Logan Macri (113) answered with a fall before the Wildcats’ Tyler Hughes was dominant with a pin at 120 that pulled Latrobe to within 15-12.

But the Big Macs got big responses from Matt Oblock (126) and Tim Hritsko (132). Each wrestled a dominant matches that ended with pins and swung the momentum to Canon-McMillan.

“I told the team we needed to have a short-term memory and forget about those pins and start wrestling,” Cardillo said. “Matt and Tim were big in the middle and everyone needed to step up. We responded and started rolling.”

Latrobe made things interesting again when Luke Pletcher (138) won by technical fall and Max Sanderbeck won a decision to pull the Wildcats back to within 27-20.

Micah Kusturis (152), however, answered with a pin for the Big Macs and Blaze Kansco won by decision to put the match out of reach.

James Zeremenko (182) and Nick Konyk (195) gave C-M a strong finish as each won by fall to close a successful night for the Big Macs.

“I’m proud of our guys,” said Latrobe head coach Tad Harbert. “Canon-Mac is a really good team and they have a lot of talent in their upper weights, which is where we are weaker. But we won a couple of matches and our young guys competed.”

The Big Macs reached the quarterfinals with a dominant 55-12 victory over Peters Township, which had advanced with a win in the preliminary round Monday.

The Indians won the first two bouts when Alex Belack (195) and Michael McAleavey (220) each won decisions, but the Big Macs responded by winning the next 10 bouts. In that span, C-M received pins from Michael Binni (106), Hritsko (132) and Declan Lewis (145).

Macri (113) won by technical fall and Anthony Mastrangelo (138) and Kusturis (152) each won by major decision.

“Peters came to wrestle,” said Cardillo. “But we showed up as well and wrestled tough. It was a good match for us to open up with.”

Latrobe advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating North Hills 43-21.