Canon-McMillan Shines in 2011 WPIAL Class AAA Individual Wrestling Finals

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, March 5, 2011 | 12:00 AM

After watching the 2011 WPIAL Class AAA Individual Wrestling Championships over the weekend, if you weren't following the team portion of the season you would certainly get a good idea of who the best team was. Host Canon-McMillan not only won the team portion of the tournament with 167.5 points, plus their head coach Chris Mary receive the coach of the year award, but they also had the most champions with 5 kids receiving gold medals Saturday night.

The Big Macs started out the evening claiming first place at both 103 and 112 pounds, as junior Colts Shorts scored a takedown and escape to win 3-0 over freshman Dom Forys of North Allegheny while sophomore Connor Schram posted 4 total takedowns on his way to a 9-4 victory over freshman Tyler Smith of Franklin Regional. At 130 freshman Solomon Chishko grabbed a gold medal, winning 3-2 over Norwin senior John Pezze, while junior Cody Klempay scored all 5 of his points in the third period to remain unbeaten while knocking off Plum senior Anthony DiLonardo at 285. Finally, after placing 3 years in a row without claiming the top spot on the podium, senior Nick Catalano earned his first gold with a 3-1 win at 145 over Pittsburgh Central Catholic senior Eric Nutter.

Which leads us to the Vikings. Pittsburgh Central Catholic was also dominant in this tournament, finishing second in the team race with 141 points and having 4 champions. Their strength is up the middle, where they had junior Tyler Manion rattle off 3 takedowns for first place at 140 over senior Cody Mutkus of Hopewell and senior Lorenzo Thomas earned his second WPIAL championship with an escape in third period to beat West Allegheny senior Aaron McKinney at 152 1-0. Junior Jason Luster then followed with a takedown clinic to beat Latrobe freshman Zack Zavatsky 18-7 at 160 and junior Perry Hills got gold at 189 with a takedown late in the third to win 3-1 over Kiski Area sophomore Matt McCutcheon.

That however was not the highlight of the night. Franklin Regional senior Nico Megaludis, who was named the tournament's outstanding wrestler, became the 21st wrestler in the history of the WPIAL to win 4 gold medals with his 17-9 win over senior Zach McGinnis of Waynesburg at 125. After being taken down to start the match, Megaludis turned up the intensity and registered a total of 7 takedowns on his way to joining the elite club. To hear from Nico Megaludis about winning his 4th WPIAL Championship, tune in to Inside the WPIAL Wrestling Circle, Monday night at 7pm.

Other WPIAL Champions included Upper St. Clair junior Mackenzie McGuire at 119, junior Ty Lydic of Latrobe at 135, senior Nick Bonaccorsi at 171, and senior Kyle McWreath of Trinity at 215.

The top three finishers qualify for the PIAA championships Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Giant Center in Hershey and here on the MSA Sports Network.

Championship Finals

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