Feb 27, 2015 4 min read

PENN HILLS – The side of his face bloodied and his opponent intent on sitting on a 3-0 lead in the third period, Trinity senior Cam Reynolds kept moving like a shark.

Attack, attack, attack.

The constant attacks finally wore down Fox Chapel’s Ian Moritz.

Reynolds converted a scramble with less than a minute remaining into a takedown and planted Mortiz on his back, pinning him with 28 seconds remaining in their 132-pound quarterfinal bout at the WPIAL Class AAA Wrestling Championships at Penn Hills High School.

Reynolds’ reward for his perseverance in beating the No. 4 seed will be a meeting today with top-seeded and unbeaten Luke Pletcher of Latrobe, a two-time PIAA champion.

That’s just fine with Reynolds.

“Anything’s possible, especially when you stay on offense,” Reynolds said.

Possible? Yes. Probable? Well, that might be a little more of a stretch against a wrestler who hasn’t lost in two seasons.

But Reynolds won’t mail it in.

“Every day is a new tournament,” said Trinity head coach Mark Powell. “We tell our guys that. Anybody can beat anybody. They’re people.

“People said that you couldn’t climb Mt. Everest, and somebody climbed it. Anything can be done if you have confidence and believe.”

Reynolds has made an Everest-like climb, going from a wrestler who, in his own words, wasn’t very good as a freshman, to one who is 25-8 and a placewinner at the prestigious Powerade Tournament this year.

The eighth-place finish at Powerade gave Reynolds plenty of confidence. And he’s turned that into a solid senior season, which led him to a second-place finish behind Waynesburg’s A.C. Headlee – the No. 2 seed at 132 pounds behind Pletcher – at last weekend’s Section 4-AAA Tournament.

Reynolds owes the scuff mark on his face that opened up against Mortiz to his bout against Headlee, who handed him a 19-3 technical fall loss. But it’s a mark of honor for him in a bout from which he said he learned a great deal.

“My coaches told me, if I just go out there and wrestle like everyone else, I’d be fine,” Reynolds said. “I ended up losing, but I gain experience every time.”

It was that experience he leaned on in his bout against Moritz.

“As long as I stayed on my offense, I knew something good would happen,” Reynolds said. “I just wanted to keep pushing, pushing, pushing until he broke. That’s what I did. I stuck with my offense.”

Reynolds will find out today if that can help him in a bout against Pletcher. Second-round consolation wrestling begins at 10 a.m., with the semifinals to follow at around noon. Consolation finals are expected to begin at 6 p.m. with the championships at 7:30 p.m.

Reynolds won’t be alone in the semifinals. Teammate Michael Kalosky earned a spot in the 113-pound semifinals with a 4-2 win over Alex Lynch of Seneca Valley. Up next will be top-seeded Devin Brown of Franklin Regional, who like Pletcher, is a defending PIAA champion.

Trinity’s Robert West, the No. 3 seed at 220 pounds, wasn’t as fortunate. He dropped a 3-2 decision to Belle Vernon’s Michael Fine via ultimate tiebreaker and now falls into the consolation bracket.

“We expected to get three into the semifinals,” said Powell, who is in his third season as Trinity’s coach. “We got two. But we haven’t any in several years.”

The top four wrestlers from each weight class advance to next week’s PIAA tournament in Hershey.

Reynolds and Kalosky were joined in the semifinals by four Waynesburg wrestlers and two from Canon-McMillan.

Caleb Morris, the top seed at 106 pounds, Headlee, seeded second at 132, Shaun Wilson, the third seed at 138, and Colin McCracken at 182 pounds all moved within one victory of assuring themselves a trip to the PIAA tournament.

Canon-McMillan’s Cam Fontenot upset No. 3 seed Tyler Kenney of Connellsville, 6-4, to advance to the 126-pound semifinals, while Micah Kusturiss, the No. 3 seed at 145, defeated Bryce Butler of Connellsville, 10-1.

Some of the other Big Macs got caught up in a wave that saw a number of the top four seeds fall, including Matt Heinl of Shaler, the No. 1 seed at 126 pounds.

Logan Macri, the No. 2 seed at 106, dropped a 3-2 decision to Penn Trafford’s Job Chishko, whose brother was a state champion at Canon-McMillan, and Tommy James, the No. 3 seed at 182 pounds, was pinned by Belle Vernon’s Milton Kobaly.