For the first time in several years the Shaler Area boys varsity wrestling team had a successful season, finishing with a 12-5 record and a win in a playoff match. Although the Titans had a successful season, the coaches wanted to make sure the team had it’s priorities straight.
“This sport will humble you like no other sport. We are in the toughest league in the United States, the WPIAL. It is known for wrestling. It only takes one bad match and you get humbled pretty quickly. We try to talk to the kids about the work, their work ethic and them knowing, school is important.”
Their five losses were extremely good matches to playoff-bound teams. Besides the five losses, they defeated a top ten WPIAL team at the end of their season giving them an extra boost of confidence for their personal seasons.
“This past season has been great. The team has done very well, we exceeded our expectations,” sophomore Jonah Cable said.
With an ultimately successful season, any and every team is of course going to experience highs and lows throughout their season. Fortunately, over the past few years the Shaler’s boys varsity wrestling team got rebuilt to become larger and more consistent as a team by working together and having chemistry with one another after being on a team together for years.
“When I came back (to coach) four years ago, we had five kids on the team. We had the full 13 weight class, and we weren’t very successful; so we built it up. We have a fairly young team and to win 12 matches is a pretty good accomplishment and making the playoffs felt pretty good,” Coach Drew D’agostino said.
With having a strong core of athletes in separate weight classes, there were some empty spots so ultimately this year, some freshmen were brought up to wrestle on the varsity level; and they performed very well.
Coach D’agostino was fairly happy with his team’s success. They accomplished a lot as a whole, but didn’t achieve the goals that they wanted when it came to the end of the year individual competitions such as Regionals and States.
Their losses in the season fuels this young team to do bigger and better things for the next upcoming season.
Besides doing well as a team, two names stick out to D’agostino when it came to exceeding personal achievements with significant improvement: senior Malik Maughan and junior Trevor Cignetti.
Cignetti transformed from someone who did not have many wins early in his career to becoming a wrestler with the most wins on the team his junior year. He qualified for the WPIAL tournament and performed well by taking third in sections as well as placing in all of the tournaments he competed in.
“Malik came into the program as a sophomore, he was only able to win two matches in that year and ended up winning 12 as a senior. That’s a big improvement,” Coach D’agostino said.
While these two athletes had improved this year, other athletes in the lower weight class such as sophomores Anthony Jones, Cole Tunstall, Aiden Tavella, Jonah Cable, and Weston Emmons all had success this year. The heavyweight wrestlers, Cignetti, junior Zach Ehrenberger, and senior Vito Barravecchio also had a consistent year.
After finishing a successful year, the Shaler Area boys varsity wrestling team aims to reach higher for the upcoming seasons.
“We plan on being competitive for the foreseeable future,” Coach D’agastino said.
