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BETHLEHEM — Over the last nine years, there have plenty of very good wrestlers to put on a Hazleton Area singlet.
That list includes several who have won 100 or more matches and grabbed state medals, including two-time state finalist Jimmy Hoffman.
But none of them did what Shane Noonan achieved on Saturday night during the Class 3A Northeast Regional Tournament.
The senior won the 220-pound regional title with a 6-3 win over Bangor’s Nick Nittoli to become the first regional champ for the Cougars since 2010 when Pat LaBuz and Jared Kay both claimed golds.
“I’m excited, but I know this isn’t the end of my journey,” Noonan said. “A couple days of practice and then three more days of wrestling next week. I’m just more excited for next week.
“It puts me in good company, and it’s cool, but I just want to be a state champion.”
Noonan, who stayed unbeaten this season with a record of 41-0, is one of four Class 3A wrestlers from the Wyoming Valley Conference to advance to the PIAA Championships, which will be held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Giant Center in Hershey. He’ll be joined at states by Dallas’ Steven Newell (182 pounds) and Shawn Henniger (285), and Wyoming Valley West’s David Krokowski (126); Newell and Henniger both placed second, while Krokowski placed third.
Noonan, now a two-time state qualifier, wasted little time getting a takedown early in the first period against Nittoli for the early 2-0 lead.
Noonan played defense a lot in the match having to defend several attempts at a cement job by Nittoli. Finally, the Cougar got a takedown of his own with 50 seconds left in the third period to secure the victory and the first regional title for the WVC in Class 3A since Cody Cordes from Wyoming Valley West in 2015.
“I knew he was gonna try and go big there (with the cement job) so I just swung my hips and grabbed his legs and he was on his back and I got the takedown,” Noonan said.
Newell became the first state qualifier for the conference when he won his semifinal against East Stroudsburg South’s Hunter Gill and made it look easy with a fall in 1:02. But the two-time state qualifier ran into problems in the final against Easton’s Dominic Falcone, dropping a 4-2 decision for just his second loss of the season, and his first since the middle of the December.
Falcone was working on an upperbody toss while in neutral and hit it with just 20 seconds for the decisive takedown. It was close to being out of bounds, but was called in Falcone’s favor.
“A tournament like this, kinda makes you regroup a little bit and take a step back,” Newell said. “I was on a high horse, not having lost in a while. When you lose, it humbles you a little bit. And I think this will help me this week to step back, work on the fundamentals.
“A loss sometimes can be more beneficial than a win. In this case, everything happens for a reason.”
Krokowski lost his regional semifinal bout on Saturday morning to Stroudsburg’s Patrick Noonan by major decision. He then had about two hours to recover before wrestling in the blood round.
He knew he had to put the match behind him, but also tried to take the loss with a grain of salt.
“Noonan’s a really good wrestler. I didn’t take that to heart at all. I just gave up too many points in bad scenarios and I wrestled not my best,” Krokowski said. “So I need to step it up when I wrestle good kids like that. Now I know and I know how to react. Taking that loss was more of like a lesson.”
The senior rebounded with a one-point win in the state-qualifying bout over Northampton’s Ethan Szerencsits. Krokowski rode out his opponent in the third period to reach the state tournament for the second time.
“I was still trying to score right at the end there. But once I saw there was only 20-some seconds on the clock I knew I had no stall calls so I was just trying to ride him out to get the time out and advance,” said Krokowski.
Henniger is the only one of the four to become a first-time state qualifier.
He advance to Hershey with a dramatic 4-3 win over Liberty’s Jaden Freeman from Liberty in the ultimate tiebreaker when Henniger didn’t let Freeman escape in the final 30 seconds. This came after Freeman escaped earlier in the match, but Dallas coach Mike Richards told his heavyweight to go ankle-waist to break down the District 11 champ, and it worked.
“He was figuring out how I was riding on top,” Henniger said about Freeman. “So we went ankle-waist, I pulled him up and broke him down flat and I was able to ride him out.”
In the finals, Henniger went into overtime again, this time against Sammi Khamis from Stroudsburg.
Khamis was awarded a reversal in the second overtime after Henniger couldn’t get out from bottom, and Khamis wasn’t called for a stall despite hanging onto Henniger’s foot.
“It’s a great feeling (to qualify for states). I get to go spend more time with Steve and wrestle with some more teammates and partners, it’s gonna be a lot of fun,” said Henniger, who was runner-up last weekend at districts, but still rebounded to reach the state tournament.
The book was closed on the Coughlin wrestling program after freshman Cooper Price lost his semifinal bout Saturday morning then dropped consolation semifinal bout and forfeited out his fifth-place bout to finish sixth at 106.
Hazleton Area’s Seth Hunsinger took fifth at 195; in the event of an injury at 195, he would be the first alternate.
Five wrestlers from the Lackawanna League also qualified for the state tournament in West Scranton’s Garrett Walsh and Jeremy Seymour, Scranton’s Jeremiah Oakes, Delaware Valley’s Jason Henderson and Wallenpaupack’s Tyler Neglia.