Baldwin Wrestling Qualifies Five Individuals for WPIAL Championships

hosted the WPIAL AAA Section 2 individual wrestling championships on Saturday, Feb. 26, and five Baldwin athletes rode a home-mat advantage to a spot in the WPIAL's overall individual championships.

This marked the first time that Baldwin wrestling hosted an individual section championships meet.

The top five finishers in each weight class qualified for the WPIAL individual championships, including the Highlanders' senior Alex Greguric (second place in the 145-pound weight class), senior Taylor Hall (fourth place at 152 pounds), junior Wil Ostermeyer (fourth place at 189), senior Anthony Noone (fifth place at 215) and senior Randy Bush (fifth place at 285).

WPIAL champions will be crowned at  from March 3-5.

Greguric, Section 2's 2011 runner-up at 145 pounds, fought hard throughout the tournament on Saturday before losing by pinfall to a tough opponent from Connellsville Area High School in the section championship match.

Still, Greguric and his four above-mentioned teammates will have another chance to "place" at the WPIAL AAA championships, which would mean a trip to the PIAA championships from March 10-12 in Hershey, Pa. The top three finishers in each weight class at the WPIAL championships will advance to the state championships.

Blake Toki, an assistant coach at Baldwin, thinks that Greguric definitely has a shot at doing just that.

"He's been wrestling outstanding," Toki said of Greguric. "I've never been so pleased with an athlete of how hard he works.

"His biggest enemy is him ... I'd like to see [Greguric] wrestle kids that he's lost to, so that he can see how much he's improved.

"He's a kid that I believe should go wrestle in college and could do quite well in college.

"WPIALs ... is all about if you can peak at the right time. The way that [Greguric] has wrestled this last week, week-and-a-half ... if he wrestles like that down at WPIALs, I think he can place.

"But it's a tough road, because [the WPIAL championships] is possibly one of the toughest tournaments in the country."

Toki also talked at length about another Baldwin wrestler – sophomore Cameron Starr – who finished in sixth place in the 160-pound class at the Section 2 championships, just one spot shy of qualifying for the WPIAL event.

Toki said that Starr, who weighs closer to 145 pounds than 160, came from behind in the fifth-place match to make things interesting but "was just too exhausted giving up too much physical weight [to his opponent]."

"[The extra weight] might not seem like a lot," Toki said, "but it's a lot when you're out there ... It's a good weight class, tough weight class."

Starr and his opponent in the fifth-place match were tied late, but Starr just couldn't hang on and narrowly missed completing a Cinderella story by qualifying for WPIALs.

"But that was a good job for a sophomore," Toki said. "[Starr] realizes how good he can be, how athletic he is."

Toki said that Ostermeyer's season has been extra special because he "sat out about 90 percent of his sophomore year" with "some ongoing physical issues."

"I was very happy with his effort," Toki said.

Noone, competing with a partially sprained meniscus, according to Toki, won an exciting and gutsy fifth-place match in overtime to qualify for WPIALs.

Bush also faced a must-win situation in his fifth-place match and pulled off a late victory as well.