WVC BOYS WRESTLING TOURNAMENT: Four individual champs help Patriots repeat team title

PLAINS TWP. — With two bouts to go in the championship round of the Wyoming Valley Conference Wrestling Tournament Jan. 3, the team standings were still too close to call.

But Pittston Area had two closers waiting in the bullpen, and the team’s two final wrestlers made sure the team title stayed with the Patriots.

Brody Spindler and Noah Gruber scored pins in the 215- and 285-pound championship6 matches helping the Patriots retain their conference team title with 174 points.

“I knew it was close going in to my match, but you can’t be looking at the scores, you have to focus on your match,” Spindler said. “I’m super proud of this team, we work hard every single day and we’re going to keep going from here.”

It was the third straight conference championship win for Spindler, who beat Crestwood’s Lincoln Bibla each of the last two years.

Wilkes-Barre Area finished second in the team race with 163½ points. The Wolfpack still held a slight lead going into the final two bouts.

But after Gene Ardo was tripped up in the 172-pound finals, the Wolfpack were done for the day.

This allowed Spindler to step up and leapfrog his Patriots over Wilkes-Barre with a third-period pin of Tunkhannock’s Jordan Milne at 215.

Gruber added some style points to finish it out, needing just 39 seconds to pick up the pin of Wyoming Valley West’s Jacob Mahoney for the exclamation point on Pittston Area’s team title defense.

“Being a senior, it’s nice to finally get the title I’ve been chasing,” Gruber said. “Pressure builds diamonds, I love being in that spot.”

Pittston Area won four of the 13 contested individual championships, getting bonus team points in the final round in each case as it hunted down host Wilkes-Barre Area. Freshman David Krantz got the ball rolling with a technical fall in the 107 pound finals, and Ethan Aftewicz won with a 10-1 major decision at 152.

The Patriots also had two runners-up in Tibor Toth and Timothy Reifler, and added a third-place and a fourth-place medal to finish with eight total medals.

Wilkes-Barre Area had nine total medals but none of them gold, with Ardo and James McKeown both taking second place in their weight classes.

Hanover Area and Hazleton Area finished tied for third with 153 points and each had three winners.

Wyoming Area was 11th out of 12 teams with 33 points.

Spindler pinned all four of his opponents on the way to his latest title. He defeated Michael Perry from Berwick in 1:16, Tyler Richards from Dallas in 58 seconds, Jaydon Skipalis from Lake-Lehman in 3:50 and Milne in 5:03.

For Krantz, the biggest challenge was getting to the final. He won decisions over Wilkes-Barre Area’s Traytan Luton 10-5 and Wyoming Area’s Chase Wilhelm 6-3. Krantz defeated Hanover Area’s Nate Clime 17-1 in 3:00 in the final.

Aftewicz pinned Nanticoke’s Ryan Chamberlain in 1:31, decisioned Nanticoke’s Logan Pop 5-1, won by technical fall over Dallas’ Troy Jones 17-1 in 5:44 and beat Berwick’s Jacob Guerriero 10-1 in the final.

The 39-second final was the longest bout of the day for Gruber, who needed just 1:42 to put away four opponents. He beat Berwick’s Ayden Winter in 17 seconds, Wilkes-Barre Area’s Cesar Garcia in 32, then Lake-Lehman’s Jake Paull in 14.

Riefler made the 121-pound final with a 25-second pin of Lake-Lehman’s Deacan Pfeiffer, but lost to Hazleton Area’s Gabe Benyo in 1:33.

Toah used a first-period pin and a major decision by shutout to get into the final where he lost to Jacob Benyo by technical fall 17-1 in 3:31.

Butler was 3-1 at 133 with a pin and two technical falls, including his 19-2 victory over Wilkes-Barre Area’s Cameron Grohowski in 3:26 for third place.

Roman split his four bouts at 114, winning with a first-period pin and an overtime decision. He lost 7-3 to Hazleton Area’s Cade Hutchinson in the consolation final.

Wyoming Area was led by Wilhelm, who had three pins, two of them in the first period, but had to settle for fourth place following a 9-7 loss to Luton.