WPIAL Wrestlers Impress at National Pre-Season Tournament

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, October 28, 2013 | 3:37 PM

The WPIAL was well represented this past weekend at the Super 32 Challenge held at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC. The event, widely regarded as the nation’s top pre-season high school wrestling tournament, filled the 14 varsity weight brackets with over 1,500 wrestlers from across the United States.  Showing why they are from one of the sport’s toughest regions, WPIAL wrestlers earned five gold medals and four silvers. Two other WPIAL athletes also turned in top-four finishes.

Two of the weight classes featured all-WPIAL championship finals. Latrobe’s Luke Pletcher defeated George Phillippi of Derry, 5-4, in the 120-pound final. Both sophomores will be defending individual state titles earned during impressive freshman campaigns last winter. In a battle of junior phenoms, Hempfield’s Sam Krivus, a defending state and Super 32 champion, captured the 132-pound title with a 2-1 nail-biter over Franklin Regional’s Michael Kemerer, a Super 32 champ himself back in 2011.

Also capturing championships were Franklin Regional’s Spencer Lee (113 pounds), Kittanning’s Jason Nolf (138 pounds), and Latrobe’s Zack Zavatsky (182 pounds). Nolf and Zavatsky, both seniors, have committed to Penn State and Virginia Tech, respectively.

Other silver medalists were North Hills’ Gage Curry (106 pounds) and North Allegheny’s Dom Forys (126 pounds). Kiski Area’s Tyler Worthing defeated Norwin’s Drew Phipps, 4-3, in the third-place consolation final of the 195-pound bracket.