Belle Vernon, PT keep focus in team section tournament
McMURRAY – The key for Mike Doppelheuer is to keep everything moving in the right direction for Belle Vernon’s wrestling team.
The talent is there and Doppelheuer, the Leopards’ head coach, knows this could be a special season if nothing interferes with it. And if the Leopards stay focused.
So far, so good for the Leopards.
They rolled through the Section 2-AAA Team Tournament at Peters Township, routing Upper St. Clair, 69-6, in the semifinals and Connellsville, 57-12, in the finals at Peters Township High School Wednesday.
The two wins most likely means Belle Vernon, the No. 1 team in every set of local rankings, will get the top seed when the WPIAL releases the brackets for the Class AAA team tournament, which gets under way next week.
Connellsville, which defeated Peters Township, 36-34, in the semifinals, finished second in the section. Peters Township defeated Upper St. Clair, 47-29, to take third place.
None of these teams was eliminated as these tournaments in both classifications are intended to decide the section championships and seeds for the WPIAL event.
Doppelheuer, who has guided Belle Vernon to an 11-1 record, is working hard to keep his team winning and grounded.
“We try to keep humble,” he said. “I told these guys the rankings mean nothing. This team has one common goal and that’s to win a WPIAL championship. If we do that, then we go on to our next goal, which is winning a state championship.”
In both matches, Belle Vernon jumped to big leads. Pins from Jared Verkleeren (145), Derek Verkleeren (152), Mitchell Hartman (160) and Austin Bell (170) made it 24-0 against USC. Derek Verkleeren and Hartman had pins to help the Leopards to a 15-0 lead against Connellsville.
“For the most part, our core guys stay humble,” Doppelheuer said. “They know the ultimate goal. If we run into problems (relaxing) with these big leads, the coaches give them that glare and they snap back into shape.”
Belle Vernon, which had 17 pins in its two victories, defeated Connellsville for the second time this season. The first came in the regular season, 51-10.
“They are a great team; what can I say?” said Connellsville head coach Tom Dolde Jr. “I saw Bethlehem Catholic last year and they are real good. They are going to be hard to beat. They only graduated one guy. The Canon-Mac team that won a state title two years in a row was a really tough team.”
Peters Township (8-2) had the most interesting bout of the night, a two-point loss to Connellsville in the semifinals. But the Indians rallied to rout Upper St. Clair, 47-29, to finish third.
Colton Jezioro (126), A.J. Buckiso (152), Luke Mary (160), Jeff Markert (170), Nick Belack (195) had pins against Upper St. Clair, which was without Eli Grape.
Dan Florentino (120), Buckiso and Mike McAleavey (220) had pins against Connellsville.
“We came to wrestle. We were a man shy,” said Peters Township head coach Jason Carpetta. “We looked at the matchups and thought that we were a man shy. But we scrapped. We came back and wrestled Upper St. Clair and wrestled well there.”
Carpetta said it took some prodding to get the team up after such a close loss to Connellsville.
“It’s tough, but the guys responded and we walked away from this 1-1.”
Carpetta hopes the third-place finish might be rewarded with a home match in the WPIAL Team Tournament.
“We’ll probably be in a pigtail,” he said. “But hopefully, we get a home match out of it.”