Wickersham, Schaffer drop opening bouts in Hershey

HERSHEY – The path to success in the postseason isn’t always clear.

Tamaqua’s Nate Wickersham and Northern Lehigh’s Josh Schaffer weren’t looking to open the PIAA Wrestling Championships with setbacks on Thursday morning.

But adversity doesn’t diminish opportunity.

Though Wickersham dropped his 182-pound preliminary match 7-3 to Slippery Rock’s Vito Pilosi, and Schaffer was pinned in 5:16 by Evan Pellegrine of Bellwood-Antis at 285, both still have a chance to move forward with a renewed focus in the consolation bracket.

“Whether you’re in the loser’s bracket or the winner’s bracket in the postseason, it doesn’t very much matter,” said Bulldogs’ head coach Scott Snyder. “You go into the district tournament, and you say, ‘OK, I’m looking to the winner’s bracket and this is my path. This is the way I’m going.’ But you’re going to lose matches, so you’re going to have to readjust and find a new path, and set new goals.

“Now Josh is trying to win the next bracket. Now he’s in the consolation bracket, and that’s his new goal now, just looking at his next opponent in this bracket. It’s just about resetting and focusing on a new goal.”

Schaffer tied the match at 2-2 with an escape with 1:46 left in the second period. Pellegrine got a reversal with 1:34 remaining in the third, but Schaffer cut it to 4-3 with another escape with 1:13 left in the match.

But Pellegrine was able to stick Schaffer for a pin with 0:45 remaining.

“It was his first time here, so I didn’t really expect him to go out and really go after it at first,” said Snyder. “He gave up that first takedown pretty quickly, but then I thought he settled in and looked pretty good.

“He slowed it down and wrestled his pace. He didn’t really give up bad position. He got close to some takedowns, but he didn’t get them. And that’s OK. At the end, he was losing and he tried something and it didn’t work out. But he was going for it.”

Wickersham tied his match with Pilosi at 3-3 with a reversal with 0:20 left. But Pilosi countered with a reversal of his own in the final three seconds before getting two back points to set the final score.

“He tied it up and went to put legs in, and didn’t set it up,” said Blue Raiders’ head coach Jim McCabe. “He just tried to put the legs in, and that put him out of position, and that’s how that kid got the reversal.”

After a scoreless first period, Pilosi got an escape with 0:41 left to go in the second to go up 1-0. Pilosi got two back points to go up 3-0 midway through the third, before Wickersham got a point for locked hands, and later tied it with the reversal.

“I think everybody gets a little bit nervous, but he was here last year so he has to overcome that and continue to work hard to wrestle back now because we have to forgot that loss and focus on the next match and look for a win,” said McCabe.

Tamaqua’s Bronson Strouse had a bye in the prelims and will wrestle Tussey Mountain’s Matt Watkins in a 285-pound first round match later this morning.