Boys athlete of the week
// The Post-Gazette’s top male performer from the past seven days
The past week: Blumer, a 160-pound senior, registered the 100th pin of his high school career in Kiski Area’s match against Hempfield in the WPIAL Class 3A Section 1 final Jan. 22.
Check this out: Blumer, a West Virginia recruit and twotime WPIAL individual champion, holds a career record of 139-26. He broke Kiski Area’s single-season school record last season by recording 34 pins while posting a 46-4 record and finishing third at the PIAA individual championships.
Most top wrestlers strive to reach 100 career wins in high school. How is it even possible for a wrestler to rack up 100 career pins? I don’t know. … It all started sophomore year when I started racking them up and actually noticing. But every year, like last year I broke the individual season school record for most pins, and then this year I was like, ‘I can break the all-time [school record], so I just kept going for it.
What was the individual season school record for pins? I think it was 33. It was Chad Kuhn.
Have you broken the school career record for pins yet? No, it’s 106. That’s Shane Kuhn. The Kuhns sound like they must have been a pretty strong family. Oh yeah, they were big dudes.
Do you have any chance of setting the all-time school wins record as well? Oh no, I’m not close to the school wins. That was like 169 I think. That’s probably cooler to have the pins record than the wins record, don’t you think? Yeah, I’ll take that over the ultimate wins.
What is your go-to pinning combination? Probably 90 out of my 100 pins are a straight, normal half-nelson.
Do you ever try to go for tilts when on top, or do you always prefer to work the half-nelson and go for the pin? Maybe a little bit, but not too much at all. Once I have them on their back, I really don’t like letting them off. I just feel like that’s a waste. But some people like to work and rack up points. I guess that’s just not my style. Did you play any other sports growing up? Yeah, I played baseball and football pretty much my whole life until ninth grade.
Do you still watch football or baseball or any other sports? I follow football a little bit. Baseball’s a little boring to watch. Who do you have winning the Super Bowl on Sunday? I’m probably going to say the Chiefs. Their offense is just insane.
Any plans yet on where you’re going to watch the game? I don’t know. That’s probably a game-time decision.