Observer-Reporter Athlete of the Week
Name: Noah Cline
School: McGuffey
Sport: Wrestling
Class: Sophomore
Cline’s week: In the last bout of the match and McGuffey trailing Derry by two points, Cline had the most important victory of his young varsity career. The 220-pound sophomore came up with a third-period reversal that sewed up a 4-1 decision over Hunter Edmiston and clinched the dual meet victory, 35-33, over Derry.
How important was the victory?
It gave McGuffey the Section 2-AA championship and earned the Highlanders a No. 4 seed in this week’s WPIAL Class AA Team Tournament.
”It’s my biggest win,” said Cline, who raised his record to 16-19. “All I was thinking about was that I had to win the match to win the section championship. My coaches told me just don’t do anything stupid out there.”
Cline said he had some motivation on the mat, even though he had never wrestled Edmiston before.
”I kept looking at the banner in the gym (that shows the years McGuffey won a section title),” he said. “I didn’t want to let everyone down.”
The Sampson factor:
One of Cline’s routines before every match is to make sure he shaves the hair off his head. He does this to honor Austin Fisher, the 220-pound starter for McGuffey last season and a friend of Cline.
But that routine was interrupted when he didn’t have a chance to do it.
”I didn’t do it this time,” he said. “I just got a hair clipper and did the best I could.”
McGuffey head coach Mark Caffrey said a win like this can be a turning point for a wrestler.
”He’s been in a lot of matches and you never know when it’s going to come down to you,” said Caffrey. “I just told him (Edmiston) had lost some matches and I believed he could beat him. I was really impressed by how calm and poised he was. I think the fans helped. They were loud, not just in the third period, but throughout the match. That gave him a boost.”
Cline also was a bit prophetic before the dual meet.
”I work out with Marshall Mounts and Dalton McCuen,” Cline said. “On the day of the match, I told Marshall Mounts, ‘Watch, this is going to come down to my match and it did.”
Compiled by Joe Tuscano