JOHNSTOWN —
Pitt-Johnstown has long been home to some of the best collegiate wrestlers in the country.
This week, the Richland Township campus is playing host to some of the nation’s best scholastic wrestlers as well.
For the second straight season, the Pennsylvania Amateur Wrestling Federation’s national teams are holding camp at the school that coach Pat Pecora has built into a Division II powerhouse.
The Cadet and Junior Greco-Roman wrestlers were working out at the Sports Center through Wednesday while the Cadet, Junior and women’s freestyle teams will arrive today.
Pecora is also holding his annual wrestling camp, which attracts
100 of the top young wrestlers in the region. There are six mats lining the floor of the Sports Center with sessions running from 7:30 in the morning until about 9 at night.
“It’s kind of the mecca, where everybody comes together this week,” he said.
Members of the current UPJ team are on hand to help with Pecora’s camp as well as wrestlers from Division I schools like Lehigh and Bucknell. Former All-Americans Jody Strittmatter, John Strittmatter, Isaac Greeley, Chris Como and Craig Thurber have returned as well, while another former UPJ All-American, Dave Yahner, now has a son entered in the UPJ camp. Some of the state’s top high school coaches with ties to the university have returned.
“It’s like one big family reunion, and it’s all centered around wrestling,” Pecora said.
For Pecora, who also serves as UPJ’s athletic director, it’s the perfect opportunity to show off his school.
“It’s also good because we now have some of the best kids in Pennsylvania coming through Pitt-Johnstown,” he said. “Even the ones that weren’t local enough to come to our camp, they’re now coming to our facility and seeing that we’re adding on to our wrestling room, there’s a new wellness center coming up over there. It exposes our school to a whole new group of prospective students and wrestlers. It’s good all around.”
Wrestlers qualified for the national teams by placing in the top four in each respective style. The teams feature stars like PIAA champion Spencer Myers of Selinsgrove, who plans to wrestle for Maryland next year, as well as phenoms like Chance Marsteller, the York County eighth-grader who is being compared to his mentor, Cary Kolat, and who has been called the LeBron James of wrestling.
Pennsylvania always fields a talented team for ASICS/Vaughn Junior and Cadet Nationals, which begin Sunday in Fargo, N.D.
“Year after year we win national (team) titles,” Pennsylvania coach Cameron Plocus said. “Sometimes we’ve swept all four divisions. The only one we lack on is the women. We don’t get enough women to go out there for it.”
Plocus, who won a PIAA title at Marion Center in 1998,
“It’s a great opportunity here,” Plocus said. “Pat Pecora works out so well with us. He has a great program building up here at UPJ. He accommodates us really well, and a lot of our top athletes are also from this area, and it’s kind of centrally located for them to come here.”
One of those local wrestlers
– Penn Cambria graduate Patrick Myers – won Junior state championships in freestyle and Greco-Roman at 125 pounds. Myers, who was a runner-up in Greco-Roman at Fargo last year, is looking for more this time.
“Hopefully I get that ‘W’ this year,” he said. “Hopefully I become
a national champ in that and freestyle. It would mean a lot because I’ve never won anything that big before. I haven’t done good at (folkstyle) states, but nationals is bigger than states, so that would mean a lot.”
Evan Link, Myers’ teammate at Penn Cambria, won the 112-pound championship in freestyle while Shade’s Brandon Michelcic finished third at 135.
Central Cambria’s Benny Rager won a pair of Cadet state titles at 130 pounds while Chestnut Ridge’s Tyler Dibert (189) was second in Greco-Roman and third in freestyle. Penn Cambria’s Nick Szala also placed third at 135 in freestyle.
“With UPJ here, with Jody Strittmatter and his Young Guns club, it’s building up the wresting in this area,” Plocus said, “so a lot of our top athletes are right from this area.”
For Pecora, he’s seeing some familiar faces return to the Sports Center for national team practices.
“A lot of the kids that are now going to Fargo at one time were in our camp,” he said. “It’s neat to see them go through the whole phase of the wrestling world, starting from a little kid at the Pitt-Johnstown wrestling clinic to moving up to where they’re going to Fargo and things like that.”
High School Sports
Related Photos
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Pitt-Johnstown assistant wrestling coach Jody Strittmatter (center) talks with elementary school wrestlers during a camp at the college on Wednesday morning. Todd Berkey
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Penn Cambria graduate Patrick Myers has his back cracked by Pennsylvania coach Cameron Plocus. Todd Berkey
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Cadet Greco-Roman team member Chance Marsteller (left) warms up before practice. Todd Berkey
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Claysburg-Kimmel coach Dave Marko (left) demonstrates proper technique for a tilt on former Pitt-Johnstown wrestler Ryan McIntyre. Todd Berkey
Discussion
UPJ playing host to some of wrestling’s best this week
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