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Cardinal Wrestlers Downed by #12 Pitt-Johnstown

January 31, 2014

JOHNSTOWN, Penn. – The #12 nationally ranked Pitt-Johnstown Mountain Cats overpowered a young Jesuit Cardinal squad on Friday on the road in Johnstown by a final score of 41-3.

Jesuit’s lone three points came in the 174lb class where Sawyer Leppla scored a dominant 13-6 decision victory over UPJ standout Nikos Garafola.

The Cardinals nearly scored one of the biggest upsets of the year in DII wrestling when 184lb freshman Ryan Winslow (Jeannette, Penn.) was seconds away from a possible defeat of the Atlantic Region’s #2 wrestler, Travis McKillop. Winslow was down by two points with 20 seconds left on the clock and was attacking, but couldn’t get the takedown needed to pull off the upset.

“In wrestling a team like UPJ, who has a rich tradition, it’s important to give our guys a good perspective on what its going to take to get to a national caliber level,” said WJU head coach Sean Doyle. “We have some guys that are very confident, but are inconsistent in their results. With a young team the biggest question is consistency, but we are seeing improvement.”


WJU freshman Sawyer Leppla took home the Cardinals only victory

The Cardinals return to the mat on Saturday when they face more strong regional competition at Seton Hill University on the road in Greensburg, Penn.

WJU will return home on Wednesday, February 5th when the Shippensburg Raiders come sailing into town at 7:00 PM.

Coach Doyle, his staff, and members of the WJU wrestling team will be hosting a FREE youth wrestling clinic in the lead up to the Shippensburg match. The clinic is open to all K-8th graders. The clinic will be held from 5:15-6:15 on the 5th in WJU’s McDonough Center. Registration can be done the day of the event. WJU will host the youngsters to pizza and drinks, sponsored by Dominoes.

125: Dave Fogle, PIJO, forf. .
133: Luke Palamides, PIJO, dec. Scott Lopez, WJU, 9-3.
141: Sam Hanau, PIJO, pinned Damon Outward, WJU, 4:00.
149: Colin Landowski, PIJO, maj. dec. Jonathan Barrett, WJU, 14-4.
157: Heath Coles, PIJO, tech. fall Robert Rogerson, WJU, 5:57 17-2.
165: Gary Lantz, PIJO, tech. fall Cody Eggers, WJU, 3:10 16-0.
174: Sawyer Leppla, WJU, dec. Nikos Garofola, PIJO, 13-6.
184: Travis McKillop, PIJO, dec. Ryan Winslow, WJU, 9-7.
197: Zachary Bennett, PIJO, pinned Maxwell Lacey, WJU, 1:11.
285: Josh Duplin, PIJO, dec. Corey Siegfried, WJU, 2-0.


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