The 2023 high school wrestling season is upon us, and there appears to be no shortage of storylines heading into the 2023-24 campaign.
Fort LeBoeuf returns as the PIAA Class 2A runner-up, while Grove City senior Hunter Hohman, who recently committed to Division I American University, leads a talented group of returning wrestlers after taking second in the PIAA 2A championships at 160 pounds last fall.
Girls’ wrestling is also set to be introduced as a PIAA-sanctioned sport, with a combined 13 teams from Districts 9 and 10 officially fielding teams, per the PIAA website.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest stories going into the season.
KICKING IT OFF
A number of teams open their season this weekend, with the biggest event coming in the form of the Hickory Invitational on Friday and Saturday.
A total of 24 District 9 and 10 teams will be competing at Hickory – Central Clarion, Coudersport, Johnsonburg, Kane, Oswayo Valley, Port Allegany, Redbank Valley, Ridgway, Sheffield, St. Marys, Cambridge Springs, Cochranton, Conneaut, Corry, Erie, McDowell, Fort LeBoeuf, Girard, Harbor Creek, Hickory, Maplewood, Mercer, Northwestern, and Sharon.
Hickory will be without several wrestlers, as they compete in their PIAA Class 3A football semifinal against Belle Vernon on Friday.
Elsewhere, Greenville will host the Sheetz Kick-off Classic, which also includes Brookville, North East, Saegertown, Sharpsville, Slippery Rock, Frazier, Hopewell and Laurel.
Clearfield and Titusville will be at the Tom Best Memorial Top Hat Tournament in Williamsport, while DuBois will be at the Southwest Kickoff Classic at Valley High School (New Kensington), Bradford will be at the Chartiers-Houston Invitational and Curwensville will be at the Inter-County Conference Tournament at Claysburg-Kimmel High School.
RETURNING STATE MEDALISTS
A number of state medalists return from both District 9 and District 10 all in Class 2A. The weight they competed at, finish, and grade going into this season are listed below
107: Dalton Wenner (Cranberry, 7th, Soph.)
114: Weston Pisarchick (Brockway, 3rd, Sr.)
121: Hudson Hohman (Grove City, 4th, Soph.); Elijah Brosius (Cranberry, 8th, Jr.)
127: Hunter Gould (Conneaut, 5th, Sr.), Cyrus Hurd (North East, 6th, Jr.)
133: Chase Bell (Reynolds, 8th, Sr.)
139: Brady Collins (Clearfield, 4th, Jr.), Wyatt Lazzar (Commodore Perry, 7th, Sr.)
145: Cody Hamilton (Grove City, 8th, Jr.)
152: Caullin Summers (Sharpsville, 8th, Sr.)
160: Hunter Hohman (Grove City, 2nd, Sr.) – lost to Grant Mackay of Laurel, now at Pitt.
189: Magnus Lloyd (General McLane, 6th, Sr.)
285: Carson Neely (Port Allegany, 4th, Jr.)
CHIESA BACK FOR MORE
Northwestern junior Sierra Chiesa made history last season, becoming the first female wrestler to win a District 10 title, doing so at 107 pounds. Chiesa went on to become the first female wrestler to qualify for the PIAA championships, where she went 2-2. She comes into the season with a career record of 66-30.
WELCOME THE GIRLS
The PIAA officially welcomed girls wrestling as a sanctioned sport beginning with the 2023-24 season.
The PIAA officially lists 14 District 9/10 schools as having teams for this season – Erie High, Fort LeBoeuf, General McLane, Hickory, Reynolds, Seneca, Saegertown, Sharpsville, Warren, Clearfield, Curwensville, Punxsutawney and Redbank Valley. More are expected to join in the future.
For now, there will be a regional postseason tournament along with state competition, with most of the action for the schools involved during the regular season being tournaments and invitationals.
DEFENDING TEAM CHAMPS/CHALLENGERS
Reynolds and Brookville captured the D10 and 9 Class 2A team titles last season, but it was Fort LeBoeuf that made the most noise, advancing all the way to the state championship match, where they fell to Faith Christian, the same team that knocked out Reynolds in the first round.
Brookville beat Burrell in the first round before falling to Berks Catholic in the quarterfinals. The Raiders, though, are probably not the favorites this year in the D9 team duals. That would be Clearfield, a team Brookville took down in the team championship a year ago but one that returns a lot of stud wrestlers and dominated the individual D9 tournament.
Among Clearfield’s top returnees are Collins, Carter Chamberlain, Cash Diehl, Ty Aveni, Colton Ryan, Carter Freeland and Brydin Chamberlain.
Cathedral Prep won the D10 3A title and fell in the first round.
Among some of the top returning wrestlers for each team are LeBoeuf’s JoJo Przybycien, Conner McChesney, Jake Bennett, Brady Bowers, Jackson Bowers, Noah Cuic, John Duran and Ryan Welka, Cathedral Prep’s Keagan Oler, Brandon Byrd and Amir Johnson, Brookville’s Cole Householder, Jared Popson, Gavin Hanna, Burke Fleming, Owen Fleming and Kolton Griffin, and Reynolds’ Chase Bell, Vito Gentile, Louie Gill, Angelo Lomonte and Waylon Waite.
