close

Macri, Chishko familiar names in area

4 min read
article image -

PENN HILLS – When you have an older brother who was a PIAA champion and is now wrestling at the NCAA Division I level, it can add to your own mystique.

Like all sports, a large portion of wrestling is mental, and if a competitor walks onto the mat worrying about his opponent’s legacy, it can be a mental edge.

Canon-McMillan’s Logan Macri and Penn Trafford’s Job Chishko know all about it.

Their older brothers, Dalton Macri and Solomon Chishko, were highly successful at Canon-McMillan, winning PIAA individual titles and playing important parts on the Big Macs’ PIAA and WPIAL team championships. They took their talents to the collegiate level this season, Macri at Cornell and Chishko at Virginia Tech.

“Everyone knows who I am and people expect me to do what he did, with big scoring matches and stuff,” said Logan Macri, who advanced through the first round of the WPIAL Class AAA Championship Thursday with a 16-8 victory over Casey Recrosio of Pittsburgh Central Catholic. “That’s not necessarily my style. But it’s also good. Some kids see your last name and it gets in their head a little bit.”

That won’t be the case today when freshmen Logan Macri and Job Chishko meet in the 106-pound quarterfinals.

The two know each other well.

“He’s been going to Quest (wrestling) since I was 8 years old,” said Macri of Chishko. “We’ve wrestled each other countless times.”

Chishko wrestled at Canon-McMillan until August when he decided to head back to Penn-Trafford, where his older brother had success before transferring to Canon-McMillan.

He figures he’s wrestled the equivalent of 100 bouts with Macri over the years.

“I know how he wrestles and he knows all about how I wrestle,” said Chishko, who won a narrow 2-0 decision over Mason Franks of Connellsville in the first round to improve to 27-7. “It should be a good match.”

Macri, now 26-8, had been the top-ranked wrestler at 106 pounds in Class AAA for much of the season. But he dropped a 4-2 decision to Waynesburg’s Caleb Morris at last weekend’s Section 4-AAA Tournament and got the No. 2 seed this weekend. Morris, who advanced Thursday with a 12-1 win over Tony Dininno of Plum, earned the top seed.

Macri felt he’d have to face Chishko at some point. He just figured it would be later in the three-day tournament.

“I thought Job would be seeded higher,” Macri said. “I didn’t want to see him until later on in the tournament. But it makes no difference. You just go out there and wrestle, no matter who you wrestle.”

Macri and Chishko will find out if that’s the case when wrestling begins tonight. Quarterfinals and first-round consolations begin at 5:30 p.m. The semifinals and finals will be Saturday.

While Macri made it through the first round unscathed, teammate Brendan Furman wasn’t as fortunate.

The No. 2 seed at heavyweight, Furman was upset by Miguel Hobbs of Woodland Hills via a pin in just 25 seconds. Furman will get an opportunity to wrestle back through the consolation bracket. The top four wrestlers in each weight class advance to the PIAA tournament.

Including Macri and Morris, 19 area wrestlers remain alive in the winners’ bracket.

Morris leads a contingent of six Waynesburg wrestlers into the quarterfinals.

Canon-McMillan has five wrestlers still alive, and Trinity has three. Ringgold and Peters Township have two each.

The tournament never got started for a couple of highly seeded wrestlers. Danny Florentino of Peters Township, the No. 4 seed at 106 pounds after winning the Section 2 title last weekend, and Gus Solomon of Franklin Regional, the top seed at 126 pounds, pulled out of the event.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today