Kiski Area wrestling tops Norwin to start section schedule

By: Greg Macafee
Wednesday, December 11, 2019 | 9:08 PM

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The Kiski Area wrestling team got its first dual win of the season on Wednesday after capturing the Eastern Area tournament this past weekend.

Led by back-to-back pins from seniors Jack Blumer and Nick Delp at the top of the match, the Cavaliers produced six total pins throughout and topped Section 1A-AAA opponent Norwin, 47-28.

“It’s a pretty tough start. They are a very good team and they are well coached,” Kiski Area coach Chris Heater said. “We went there last year, and it was the first dual meet of the season, and we didn’t wrestle well. So I kind of preached that all week, I told the guys we need to make sure that we’re on our game.”

The Cavaliers (1-0, 1-0) showed that they were ready from the start. Blumer pinned his opponent in 12 seconds to start it off, then Delp got his fifth pin of the season in 1 minute, 21 seconds over Norwin’s Josh Page.

The Knights (1-2, 0-1) responded when Ryan Weinzen earned his second victory of the season with a 12-3 major decision over Jared Curcio at 182 pounds.

Brayden Roscosky earned a pin in 3:47 at 195 and sophomore heavyweight Stone Joseph pinned his opponent in 37-seconds to pull out a commanding lead. Heater thought the top of his lineup did exactly what they were supposed to do in the first meet of the season.

“Our guys up top did what was expected of them,” Heater said. “But I thought our lightweights wrestled really well tonight.”

Antonio Giordano was one that stood out to Heater the most. As a freshman last season, the younger Giordano brother only won eight matches. This season, the 106-pounder has won five of his six matches and has earned five pins.

In front of a packed crowd at Kiski Area, he earned a pin over Norwin’s Carson Hendra in 3:04 to earn some crucial points in the match. Through the early parts of the season, Antonio said he is feeling a little stronger.

“It’s been lots of hard training,” Antonio said. “But last year, I started around 102, and this year I’ve been cutting more weight, so I am kind of a heavier 106.”

Norwin’s Conner Henning earned a pin at 113 over Conner Murray, but Ryan Klingensmith and Dom Giordano prevented a Norwin run with a decision and a technical fall, respectively.

After Dom’s technical fall victory, Norwin won three straight from 132 to 145. Colton Minerva earned a pin in 1:35, Kurtis Phipps bumped up a class to 138 and earned a pin over Ethan Connor, and then John Altieri got a pin in 1:35 over Deon Taylor.

By that point in the match, the outcome was already decided, but Norwin coach Vince DeAugustine was pleased with the effort his team put in.

“For us to be able to get this type of competition is really good,” DeAugustine said. “We embrace the opportunity to wrestle a program like Kiski. We started off at a bad weight for us, but we tried our best to weather the storm and we wanted to battle every individual match.”

Enzo Morlacci finished off the match with a 5-1 decision over Chase Kranitz at the 152-pound weight class.

The Cavaliers will head to the Moon Duals this weekend, while Norwin will wait until Wednesday, Dec. 18 to take on Central Catholic.

Greg Macafee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Greg by email at gmacafee@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Tags: Kiski Area, Norwin