Mar 4, 2022 2 min read

MCMURRAY — The PIAA Class AA Southwest Region championships have not treated the wrestlers at Mount Union High School very well these past two years.

After not qualifying anyone last year, Mount Union saw all its qualifiers eliminated from gold medals after the quarterfinals of the regional.

The top six wrestlers in each weight class advance to the PIAA Championships at the Giant Center in Hershey. Mount Union wrestlers will go without a gold or silver medal, which usually means poor seeds.

“We were just hoping to survive and advance,” said Mount Union head coach  Corey Wertz. “Hopefully, we get to the top six. We knew we had a couple tough matchups.”

Mason Beatty started out well with a pin of Killian Turek of Southside Beaver in the 106-pound first round. But he ran into Parker Sentipal of Burgettstown, the top seed, in the quarterfinals.

Sentipal pinned Beatty in 3:30:

At 120 pounds, AJ Chilcote of Mount Union was defeated by Tyler Clark of Frazier by a 14-3 major decision. 

At 126 pounds, Caden Chilcote of Mount Union ran into the third-seeded Dylan Bruce of Elizabeth Forward and was pinned in 3:51.

“We knew we had some tough matches,” said Wertz. “Mason matchup at 106 was against a pretty good kid (Sentipal) but he took him down. Then he got barred up in the second period so it didn’t go our way there. We knew we would be battling back through the consys but we just didn’t know when that would be.”

Jayce Reck, a 160-pound senior, lost his preliminary bout then got eliminated by Kyle Brookman of McGuffey 10-5 in the pigtail consolation round.

“We’re going to keep battling,” Wertz said. “Hey anything can happen. You just never know.

“We looked at Mason’s upcoming matches and it looks pretty good. AJ beat the guy he got earlier this year. Everybody is here for a reason. That’s because everyone is good.”