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Headlee out to claim his spot at WPIAL tournament

4 min read

Waynesburg senior A.C. Headlee drew a lot of interesting new nicknames last week after suffering what he called a minor eye injury that caused him to wear a half mask to wrestle at last weekend’s Section 4-AAA tournament.

From Batman to Birdman to Nighthawk, Headlee heard them all.

Headlee, who likely won’t be wearing the mask again this week, felt the nicknames were silly. But he didn’t care. He’s focused on what’s ahead of him as he prepares for his final WPIAL Class AAA Championships, which begin at 5:30 p.m. today with pigtail and preliminary round bouts at Penn Hills High School.

Quarterfinals will be at 5:30 p.m. Friday with semifinal and championship bouts Saturday.

Despite having a 159-16 career record – including 37-1 this season – being a two-time PIAA placewinner and winning a WPIAL championship as a sophomore, Headlee drew the No. 2 seed at 132 pounds for the three-day tournament.

Standing between Headlee, a North Carolina recruit, and a second WPIAL championship is top-seeded Luke Pletcher, who is unbeaten at 33-0. The Latrobe junior is a returning state champion and hasn’t lost in two years.

Headlee’s only loss of the season came against George Phillippi of Derry in the semfinal bout at the Powerade Christmas Tournament. Phillippi has finished first and third in the past two state tournaments.

Phillippi rode Headlee for the entire second period, then escaped in the third period to win.

Headlee is focused on what he must do to win this title. Up first will be the winner of a preliminary bout between Cameron Zuber of McKeesport and Vittorio Orsini of Pine-Richland. After that, who knows?

“It’s definitely no cakewalk. I’m going to have tough guys every match at WPIALs,” Headlee said. “I’m just hoping to get my match with Pletcher and finally put my name out there instead. He’s always been the guy on the top. I feel like he sort of took my spot.”

Being the underdog is a common theme for Headlee.

A year ago, he competed in a loaded 126-pound weight class that included eventual PIAA champion Dalton Macri of Canon-McMillan, Sam Krivus of Hempfield and Dom Forys of North Allegheny, all returning state placewinners.

Only the top three in the WPIAL tournament, which doubles as the Southwest Regional, would advance to the PIAA tournament. Krivus ended up the odd man out.

Headlee settled for a second-place finish in the WPIAL tournament and third at the PIAA level.

The PIAA will take the top four placewinners at the WPIAL tournament this year, but it wouldn’t matter to Headlee if only one wrestler from each weight class advanced. He wouldn’t back down from a challenge.

“He’s been handling the pressure pretty well,” said Waynesburg head coach Joe Throckmorton. “That one loss at the beginning of the year was something that motivates him. That’s what we’ve told him. That’s why we wrestle in the Beast (of the East). That’s why we wrestle in Powerade. We wrestle in those tough tournaments so you can learn from those mistakes. Hopefully, that’s how it plays out. But there are lots of good kids in the WPIAL, so he’ll take it one match at a time.”

Headlee wasn’t the only local wrestler to draw a high seed for the WPIAL tournament.

At 106, Waynesburg’s Caleb Morris and Canon-McMillan’s Logan Macri, drew the top two seeds. The pair have split their four meetings this season, including a 4-2 win by Morris last week at the section tournament. Peters Township sophomore Daniel Florentino is seeded fourth in the weight class.

Canon-McMillan sophomore heavyweight Brendan Furman drew the No. 2 seed behind Latrobe’s Tyler Mears after handing Zach Jablonski of Montour his first loss of the season in the section final last weekend. Jablonski is seeded third.

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