As the month of February came to a close, so did the boy’s varsity wrestling season. The team had its ups and downs and they made a lot of uplifting memories to remember. In the end, it’s all about how much success the team made altogether. 

Before the season started, the team had a lot of goals to accomplish in mind, hoping to do better than last year and go farther as a team than ever before. However, those goals were met short. The team ended their season with a pretty rough record compared to last year.

“As a team overall I think we didn’t do what we had expected we would,” junior Ethan Wolfe said. “We all had bigger goals but we fell short.”

Even though the team, in general, wasn’t as strong as they would have anticipated, there were individuals on the team that made some high achievements. On Feb. 14 to Feb. 15, The wrestling team traveled to Cannon Macmillan to compete at the WPIAL tournament. At this tournament, wrestlers from counties all over western Pennsylvania would fight their way to the top of the podium in hopes of going on to the regional competition. With the stakes high, the Bulldogs gave it all they got on the mats.

After the tournament, three Bulldog wrestlers went far in the tournament and qualified to go on to the PIAA regional competition at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Both junior Trent Schultheis and Quigley Catholic senior Kenny Duschek placed first in their respective weight classes and freshman Matthew Schultheis placed fifth in his weight class. For Trent Schultheis, this marks his third consecutive WPIAL championship win.

“It feels pretty good,” Matthew Schultheis said, talking about the regional competition. “I’m excited to get out there and wrestle.”

Since Trent Schultheis is not a stranger to this competition, he had high hopes upon entering the mats at the regional competition. 

“I expect to win it. I mean, I’m going to have some pretty tough opponents that are ranked number three in the country, but I think I can beat them,” Trent Schultheis said.

After the WPIAL competition, the PIAA regional southwest championship competition took place on Feb. 21 to Feb. 22 where Trent Schultheis, Matthew Schultheis and Duschek all competed in the respective weight classes. At the end of the tournament, Trent Schultheis took second place and Duschek took fourth place. This means that the two Bulldog wrestlers earned their place at the PIAA state competition on March 5-7 in Hershey.

Overall, there are a lot of individuals on the team that have encountered a lot of success throughout the year. However, for the team itself, they will set similar goals for next season and come back stronger than ever.

“Next year we would like to have a stronger team and hopefully make it to states,” Wolfe said.