Feb 14, 2019 3 min read

Many competitors call the portion that begins tonight as high school wrestling’s second season.

The team portion that began Dec. 7 is over. The champions have received trophies and the team aspect has switched to a what’s-best-for-me situation.

It’s time for the individual season to get underway and Class AA gets the first shot while Class AAA gets the week off.

For Nate Yagle, a 113-pound sophomore from McGuffey High School, this time could not come quickly enough.

Yagle spent a chunk of the team portion injured.

He heads into the Section 1 tournament at Canon-McMillan High School as the top wrestler at 113 pounds.

All three of the Class AA sections will be held tonight at the C-M gymnasium. The WPIAL Class AA Championships will start tonight with a preliminary round and finish on Saturday, also at Canon-McMillan.

The top four wrestlers from each section will move on to the WPIAL Championships. Full wrestlebacks begin from the round of 8.

Yagle missed seven bouts with a wrist injury. The fortunate part for Yagle was that he was able to keep his conditioning while the wrist healed.

“I was out three weeks,” said Yagle. “I fell on it wrong in practice. It was hard not being able to wrestle. I hated to have to sit it out while my teammates were out there wrestling.

“I have to have a new mindset now. I put my heart and soul into helping the team win before. Sometimes, I didn’t know who I was going to wrestle. Now, I’m wrestling for me.”

Yagle handles pain well. Last season, he separated his shoulder for the regional tournament but still earned a spot in the PIAA Championships.

“I did it in the first match,” he said. “I just wrestled with it.”

Boy, did he ever. Yagle pinned Burrell’s Trent Valovchik to get his ticket to Hershey. Yagle went 2-and-out at the Giant Center and ended up with a 32-20 record.

The other wrestlers in the weight class tonight are freshman Kyle McCollum (26-14) of Beth-Center; freshman Anthony Lancos (19-12) of Burgettstown; senior Bryce Hook (9-10) of Bentworth; freshman Kyle Slesh (8-10) of Washington; and freshman Dalton Lucey (0-2) of West Greene.

“I’m not really surprised I got the top seed,” Yagle said. “I beat everyone in my weight class. I can’t wait for the WPIAL tournament.”

The three section tournaments begin at 3 p.m. and are expected to be completed by 9 p.m. The WPIAL will hold the opening round of the WPIAL Championships 20 minutes after the section tournaments are decided.

Action on Saturday begins 10 a.m. and the Parade of Champions start at 4:50 p.m. Finals are at 2 p.m.

Yagle was third in the section seventh in the district and sixth in the region last season. He wants to improve on all three numbers.

“My goals are to win the section, WPIALs and regional titles,” said Yagle, who has been wrestling for 14 years. “I want to make it to states and earn a medal.”