Another honor for Canon-McMillan’s Nijenhuis: O-R Sports Headliner
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
With a 181-16 record, two-time state champion Gerrit Nijenhuis is the WPIAL career leaders in wins.
By Eleanor Bailey/Almanac Sports Editor/ebailey@thealmanac.net
Gerrit Nijenhuis lost only twice in four trips to the PIAA Class AAA Championships in Hershey.
Observer-Reporter
Canon-McMillan’s Gerrit Nijenhuis has decided to attend Purdue University after he graduates.
Gerrit Nijenhuis could not have asked for a better season.
The senior from Canon-McMillan High School went through it undefeated and won the last 58 varsity wrestling matches of his career.
His 47th bout of his senior season made him a two-time PIAA Class AAA champion and four-time medalist at the Giant Center in Hershey.
Nijenhuis walked off the mat, well leapt off the mat and into the arms of Big Macs head coach Jeff Havelka with the most victories in WPIAL history, 181, and with four medals from it’s tournament, the last two of them gold.
Nijenhuis made his final win an historic one, defeating Donovan McMillon of Peters Township, 6-0, in the 182-pound final.
And now, to top it off, Nijenhuis has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Observer-Reporter Sports Headliner award.
“I had the mindset that no one was going to stop me from reaching my goals,” he said last month. “I was going to go through everybody. I wrestled a bunch of great wrestlers but it’s hard to measure (who was the toughest).”
Normally, Nijenhuis would have been presented with the trophy that accompanies the honor at the Tri-County Athletic Directors’ Association Coach of the Year banquet but the event has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The presentation will be made at a later date.
Nijenhuis became the 25th state champion in Canon-McMillan history, the 46th if you combine the champions from Canonsburg. Not since Solomon Chishko won his second title in 2014 had Canon-McMillan had a two-time state champion.
“Out of everything that sticks out, what he did at the state tournament – third, third, first, first – was pretty good,” said Canon-McMillan head coach Jeff Havelka. “I wasn’t there when he was a freshman but I knew about him. A freshman at 152 and taking third doesn’t happen all the time. And the WPIAL record was pretty impressive. There have been a lot of great wrestlers coming out of there.”
Nijenhuis began the PIAA tournament with a pin in 1:43 over Jake Marnell of Hazelton, then stopped Joey Milano of Spring Ford, 7-1, in the quarterfinals. Nijenhuis moved into the finals with a 13-2 major decision over Nick Baker of Penns Manor. He controlled McMillon from the start on the way to the 6-0 victory.
The match was historic in that it was the first time in PIAA history that two wrestlers from the Washington-Greene County area faced one another in a PIAA wrestling final.
The win over McMillon made Nijenhuis the winningest wrestler in WPIAL history at 181-16. The previous record was 180 and shared by two Pittsburgh Central Catholic wrestlers: Dane Johnson and Geoff Alexander. The mark is not expected to last long as Ian Oswalt of Burrell is on track to break it if he remains healthy. Oswalt has 140 victories and has won at least 45 bouts in each of the last three seasons. The state record is 199 wins by Zach Kemerer of Upper Perkiomen.
Nijenhuis defeated McMillon, 8-2, the previous week in the WPIAL finals. Nijenhuis won his first Powerade title in December, routing Cole Rees of Wyoming Seminary, 10-0, in the 182 final. In his junior season, Nijenhuis had an explosive final at Powerade, nearly coming to blows with his nemesis, Carter Starocci of Erie Prep, in a 5-2 loss.
Nijenhuis broke through in the state tournament as a junior after third-place finishes as a freshman and sophomore. He pulled the upset of the finals in Class AAA when he tore apart Susquehanna Township’s Edmund Ruth, a two-time state champion, 8-3, in the 170-pound final. Nijenhuis was named the Outstanding Wrestler in the classification for the tournament.
Nijenhuis committed to Purdue last February and will compete in the Big Ten in the fall.