Big Macs win 10 bouts, roll past Waynesburg
Waynesburg’s Connor Main wrestles Canon-McMillan’s Zach Rohaley in the 220-pound bout Wednesday. Main won, 6-0.
Canon-McMillan’s Matt Oblock works to control Waynesburg’s Caleb Morris during their 132-pound bout Wednesday night in Waynesburg. Oblock won, 4-3.
Canon-McMillan’s Anthony Matrangelo tries to escape from Waynesburg’s Ryan Braun in the 126-pound bout. Matrangelo won, 9-3.
WAYNESBURG – The wrestling team at Canon-McMillan High School has won the section title every year since 2002.
From the way the Big Macs wrestled Wednesday night, that streak does not look to be in jeopardy.
Canon-McMillan won all but four bouts and swept through the lightweights with ease to rout Waynesburg, 50-19, in a Subsection 4-A dual meet in Class AAA.
The victory moved the Big Macs to 3-0 in the subsection and 3-1 overall, the only loss coming against Kiski Dec. 22. Waynesburg fell to 3-1 overall and 2-1 in the subsection.
“You never know what’s going to happen in a match,” said C-M head coach Jason Cardillo. “We got more pins than I thought. I thought the matches we were going to win, we won. It just came down to the bonus points.”
The dual meet started in an advantageous spot for the Raiders, 138, and they managed to keep it close, 21-19, through the first eight bouts. In that run, Waynesburg got a 9-1 major decision from Trey Howard over Dimitri Pihiou at 145; a pin by Kyle Homet over Stefen Richer in 3:11; a forfeit win by Colin McCracken at 195; and a 6-0 decision by Connor Main over Zach Rohaley at 220.
“We’re still inexperienced in a lot of weight classes,” said Waynesburg head coach Joe Throckmorton. “I thought we could hang with them but we have no experience in about five weight classes. That makes a difference. You see they have quantity. (Canon-McMillan) weighed in 26 kids. We’ve never done that while I was at Waynesburg.”
Whatever hopes Waynesburg had of winning the dual meet quickly disappeared as Canon-McMillan reeled off three straight pins and a technical fall to surge to a 44-19 lead. Brendan Furman began the run with a pin in 1:34 of Nathan Hinerman at heavyweight, and Michael Binni followed with a pin in 4:47 of MaCottie Denjen at 106. Ken Hayman pinned Nitin Patel in 47 seconds at 113 and Logan Macri, fresh off a silver medal performance at the Powerade Christmas Wrestling Tournament, won a 20-4 technical fall over Justin Victory at 120 pounds.
Anthony Mastrangelo won a 9-3 decision over Ryan Braun at 126 and that set up arguably the best bout of the night.
Matt Oblock of Canon-McMillan won a thrilling 4-3 decision over Caleb Morris in the 132-pound bout. Oblock held a 2-1 lead after two periods and scored two escapes in between being taken down in the final two minutes. Morris finished second at 132 in the Powerade tournament and Oblock took eighth.
“I know I’m going to wrestle him four or five more times until the end of the year,” said Oblock. “I just went out there and did what I can do. He likes to throw in the legs. I was looking for that. This win gets me excited to go to the section tournament and WPIAL tournament. I feel I’m ready now.”
It was the first time Oblock and Morris wrestled.
“I told Matt to go out there and wrestle this one for yourself;” Cardillo said. “I said this is a section match and you can help yourself with the seedings. I said let’s go out and get this one.”
Garrett Nijenhuis and Bryan Milligan also had pins for the Big Macs. Nijenhuis stuck Challen Spitznogle in 1:41 and Milligan stopped Luke Robinson in 49 seconds.