Bentworth’s Vargo keeps slate clean with Section 1 victory
Joe Tuscano/Observer-Reporter
Dylan Slovick of Burgettstown, front, controls Tyler Clark of Frazier during their 113-pound match Friday. Slovick won a 6-0 decision.
By Joe Tuscano/Staff writer/jtuscano@observer-reporter.com
Max Ivcic of Bentworth tries to get Parker Sentipal off his back in the 106-pound bout Friday. Sentipal won by fall.
Joe Tuscano/Observer-Reporter
Gavin Suica, left, of Burgettstown gets backpoints against Davis Stepp of Beth-Center in their 120-pound bout Friday. Suica won by 17-2 technical fall.
By Joe Tuscano/Staff writer/jtuscano@observer-reporter.com
Joey Sentipal of Burgettstown, top, works on Chase Frameli of Jefferson-Morgan during their 126-pound bout Friday. Sentipal won a 3-0 decision.
CANONSBURG – He is one of a handful of wrestlers who are undefeated in this preseason tournament, but just think how good Chris Vargo will be when he gets more mat time.
The freshman from Bentworth tore through his weight class over the last two sessions and ran his record to 9-0 for the season, winning the 113-pound weight class in the Section 1-A Tournament with a pin of Dylan Slovick of Burgettstown in 1:02 Friday.
The event was held at Canon-McMillan High School.
That victory kept him undefeated but Vargo said it didn’t add any pressure.
“I just try to wrestle each match to my full potential,” said Vargo. “Sometimes it goes as planned, sometimes it doesn’t. It is what it is.”
Still, there was little Vargo could do about his number of matches.
“Our school didn’t allow us to go to any tournaments,” said Bentworth head coach Mike Shrader. “They had to be all individual duals. What concerns me is his lack of mat time. The more matches, the less you worry about pulling a muscle or something like that.”
Vargo is the younger, and smaller, brother of Jon Vargo, who as a freshman weighed 160 pounds and got to 190 pounds as a senior.
“He’s wrestled in a lot of big tournaments,” Shrader said. “How good can he be? We’ll see.”
Vargo wasn’t the only undefeated wrestler in the tournament. Heck, he wasn’t the only undefeated wrestler on his team.
Vitali Daniels, who defeated Joey Baronick of Burgettstown, ran his record to 12-0 with his lone win in this tournament.
Also undefeated is Burgettstown’s talented 189-pounder, Shane Kemper. He ran his record to 18-0 with two wins.
“It doesn’t put pressure on me,” said Kemper. “I haven’t really focused on it. It’s just a matter of me going out and wrestle my hardest. I lived with the outcome.”
Kemper said the competition this year is harder than he’s seen before.
“It’s such a tough competition because of how many people are taken out. Everyone is coming at each other as hard as they can because we don’t know what the outcome might be.
“Crazy things can happen and kids won’t make it out of certain situations. That’s what makes this postseason so uncertain.”
Beth-Center and Burgettstown tied for the number of first-place finishes with four apiece. Bentworth had two and Frazier, McGuffey and South Park each had one.
The top two wrestlers in each weight class advanced to the WPIAL Class AA Individual Championships today at Canon-McMillan.
The top 3 wrestlers from today’s event advance to the PIAA Class AA Southwest Regional at Indiana University next weekend.
First-place finishers included Parker Sentipal (106) of Burgettstown; Vargo (113); Gavin Suica (120) of Burgettstown; Joey Fischer (126) of South Park; Kyle McCollum (132), Tyler Debnar (138) and Tyler Berish (145) of Beth-Center; DJ Slovick (152) of Burgettstown; Trevor Pettit (160) of Beth-Center; Rune Lawrence (172) of Frazier; Shane Kemper (189) of Burgettstown, Tasso Makripodis (215) of McGuffey and Daniels (Hvy).