Teasdale has opportunity to be four-time champion
Gavin Teasdale and Sam Hillegas have the same goal for their high school wrestling career. The only difference is that Teasdale is a lot closer to reaching that goal.
Teasdale, a Jefferson-Morgan senior, needs four wins at the PIAA championships to become a four-time champion. The PIAA’s most exclusive club has only 12 members init’s 80-year history.
“When I made it to the varsity as a freshman, I set my goal to become a four-time state champion.” said Teasdale, a Penn State recruit.
Teasdale is the top seed and strong favorite to win the Class 2A 126-pound title this weekend in Hershey, Pa. He is 36-2 this season and 158-2 for his career. His other three titles came at 106, 113, and 126.
Hillegas went undefeated in his freshman year at North Hills and won the PIAA Class 3A title at 113 pounds. Hillegas is entered at 126 pounds this year and is the top seed and a strong favorite claim a second title.
“My ultimate goal is to be a four-time champion,” said Hillegas, who has a 28-1 record this season and 71-1 career mark. “But I can’t be concerned with that this weekend. I can’t look ahead. My coaches always tell me that even if you are the top guy, always think you are the second guy chasing after the title.”
Hillegas is one of five WPIAL wrestlers in the Class 3A tournament who are seeded No. 1. The others are Kurtis Phipps, Ryan Sullivan, Ian Edenfield and Isaac Reid.
Phipps (36-0), a Norwin sophomore, is a two-time WPIAL champion at 106 pounds who placed seventh in last year’s PIAA tournament. “I didn’t do as well at Hershey as I had hoped for,” he said. “This will be my last tournament at 106, since I will be moving up one or two weight classes, so I have to makethe most of it.”
Sullivan (38-1), a Shaler junior, is the top seed at 113 after winning the WPIAL title. He was a PIAA runner-up last year at 106. “It’s great to win a WPIAL title, but the real goal is [this week] at Hershey,” he said. “I came close last year. I wantto stand atop the podium thisyear.”
Edenfield (30-5), a Laurel Highlands senior wrestling as an independent, is a two-time WPIAL champion at 220 pounds who placed second in the state last season. He was the first Laurel Highlands wrestler to place at the state tournament.
“I came so close,” he said, referring to his 3-2 tiebreaker loss to Upper Darby’s Brian Kennerly in the state title match. “It was great to get that far, but I still have one goal to attain. I want to be a state champion.”
Reid (19-0), a Kiski Area senior, is a three-time WPIAL finalist and one-time champion at 285 pounds. He placed second in last year’s PIAA tournament. Reid is the top seed, despite missing the first six weeks of the season recovering from a blood clot. “Winning a WPIAL title was the first goal I set for this season,” he said. “The other is to win the PIAA title. I need four more wins.”
Two WPIAL entries are seeded No. 2 in the Class 3A tournament — Canon-McMillan senior Logan Macri (35-2) at120 and Belle Vernon senior Zach Hartman (40-1) at 160. Macri and Hartman reached the PIAA tournament four years in a row, and are two of six WPIAL wrestlers who qualified for the fourth time in Class 3A. The others are Seneca Valley’s Louis Newell (38-4 at 120), Waynesburg’s Caleb Morris (40-7 at 126), Kiski Area’s Noah Levett (40-4 at 138) and Penn-Trafford’s Job Chishko(34-7 at 145).
South Side Beaver’s Bishop McCoy (39-1) is the only No. 2 seed in Class 2A from the WPIAL. McCoy, a 285-pound senior, is a two-time WPIAL champion who placed fifth in thestate last year at 200.
Teasdale and Southmoreland’s Tyler Griffiths (22-6 at 145) are the only two WPIAL entries in Class 2A returning to Hershey for a fourth time.