Feb 27, 2016 4 min read

When the seedings come out for next weekend’s WPIAL Class AAA wrestling tournament, a lot of focus will be on who has been given the top seed in each weight class.

But if that event is anything like Saturday’s Section 4-AAA tournament at Trinity High School, those seeds might be meaningless.

Eight of the 14 No. 1 seeds lost at some point in the one-day tournament, opening the door for some surprise winners.

Surprises, at least, in the eyes of the seeding committee.

To the wrestlers who pulled them off, they were anything but upsets.

“Honestly, I don’t pay any attention to seeds,” said Trinity senior Ryan Yocum, who knocked off top-seeded Tim Hritsko of Canon-McMillan, 8-7, in the 132-pound final, getting payback for a Hritsko pin earlier in the season.

“You’ve got to beat everyone anyway, so the seeding doesn’t really matter. You just wrestle.”

In several cases, such as the fifth match of the season between Waynesburg’s Cole Rush and Canon-McMillan’s Matt Oblock in the 126-pound final, it was a case of two wrestlers who had faced each other so many times that the bout could have gone either way.

Oblock reversed Rush into a nearfall for a 4-0 second-period lead and fought off a takedown attempt – off of a cartwheel – in the closing seconds to hold on for a 4-2 win.

“The first two matches, I was able to beat him,” said Oblock, a junior. “The next two times, he caught on to what I was doing and was able to take me down more. The last time we wrestled, he beat me, like, 8-3. This time, we just went at it.

“The thing I realized is, if you try to wrestle to your opponent and try to wrestle how they wrestle, you’re going to lose. You’ve just got to go out there and wrestle your match.”

It was a common theme among the upset winners. They didn’t care what the seedings were, who they were wrestling or what transpired earlier in the season. It was all about living in the moment.

And for many, such as Waynesburg sophomore Kyle Homet, the 160-pound winner, the moment was big.

Homet edged Canon-McMillan’s Blaze Kansco, the top seed, 3-2, in the semifinals. Then, in the finals, he stuck Kevin Holman of Ambridge for a three-point move in the second period while on top for a 4-2 win. It was only the second loss of the season for Holman.

Holman stood up several times while on the bottom and Homet kept trying to get him into a headlock before taking him back to the mat. Finally, Homet hooked the headlock and pulled Holman straight back onto the mat for a nearfall.

“I was talking to my coach in practice one day and I had hit it on a couple of kids and he said, ‘You wouldn’t be able to hit that on me,'” said Homet, who called the move a “Suicide Merkle.” “That stuck in my mind. It happened to be there and I went for it.

“You’ve got to go for it. I put a lot of work into this and the opportunity was there. After some losses this year, I said to myself, ‘What could I have done? Or, I wish I would have done this or that. I’ve convinced myself to just go for it, and if it doesn’t go your way, at least you went for it.”

Other upset winners included Waynesburg’s Terry Victor at 152 pounds. Victor defeated Micah Kusturiss, 4-0.

Trinity’s Justin Ritter also knocked off the top seed at 170 pounds, beating West Allegheny’s Rocky McGeary, 9-4.

Canon-McMillan’s Brendan Furman, a returning section champion, showed that perhaps he was underseeded when he pinned Trinity’s Austin Fife in just 1:19.

While the upsets were happening around them, some top-seeded wrestlers went about their work in a business-like fashion.

Canon-McMillan’s Logan Macri and Nick Konyk, made short work of their respective opponents in winning titles at 113 and 195 pounds. Macri won all three of his matches by technical fall, while Konyk had a technical fall and a first-period pin on his way to a title. They were two of four champions and 11 wrestlers from Canon-McMillan who qualified for the WPIAL tournament.

Waynesburg’s Caleb Morris (120), Shaun Wilson (138) and Colin McCracken (182) made their seeds stand up and will lead a contingent of 10 Raiders to the WPIAL tournament.

Waynesburg had the mot overall champions with five.

Trinity had two champions (Yocum and Ritter) and qualified eight wrestlers for next weekend.

Montour had two champions in Nico Marsico at 145 pounds and Roman Macek at 220, and Moon had the other champion, Frankie Bonura at 106 pounds.