HERSHEY - If Tri-Valley's Caleb Bordner and Hunter Harner are to make it back onto the podium at the PIAA Class AA Wrestling Championships, they'll have to do it the hard way.
That means coming through the consolations. Again.
For the second straight season, the juniors dropped tough preliminary bouts Thursday, but for the second straight season, they kept their seasons alive with victories in the wrestlebacks.
Bordner, a 120-pounder, placed eighth as a freshman and sixth last season at states. Harner, a 145-pounder, gained an eighth-place medal last March.
They're two of seven area wrestlers remaining in the consolations after Day 1 of the tournament.
Upper Dauphin's Coy Campbell (113), Panther Valley's Len Ogozalek (113), Tamaqua's
Colin Mashack (126), North Schuylkill's Alek Hummel (195) and Pine Grove's Ryan Martin (220) lost in the prelims, then came back with consolation victories. They'll wrestle against quarterfinal losers at 10:45 this morning, with the second-round consolation winners clinching a medal.
Going 0-2 and bowing out of the tournament were Williams Valley's Willy Girard (34-8) at 106, Hamburg's Sean Stanish (43-12) at 120, Tri-Valley's Chase Schaeffer (33-12) at 138 and Anthony Snyder (33-13) at 152, Panther Valley's Rian Shubeck (33-10) at 220 and North Schuylkill's Nate Gadinski (38-10) at 285.
It was a rough opening round for the local wrestlers, who went 4-13 in the preliminaries. Things went better in the consolations, a 7-6 record keeping 11 wrestlers alive into Day 2 of the tournament.
Both Bordner and Harner came within seconds or one move of advancing to the quarterfinals.
For the second straight season, Bordner faced Redbank Valley's Willis Gruver in the preliminaries. Gruver, a seventh-place medalist last season, won 4-3 in 2013 and rallied past Bordner 4-1 on Thursday. Bordner led 1-0 until Gruver scored a takedown and back points during the final 10 seconds.
Rebounding with a fall in the wrestlebacks, Bordner (37-6) decked Mount Union's Sage Moist in 2:41.
Harner, matched against Burrell's Corey Falleroni in the preliminaries, scored the first takedown and led 3-1 after two periods. Falleroni, though, scored a reversal in the third period and another in the second tiebreaker period to win 5-3. Harner had numerous chances to escape or score the winning takedown, but couldn't finish.
Like his teammate, Harner (30-11) stayed alive with a 3-1 decision over Reynolds' Levi Stoyer.
Also in the wrestlebacks:
- Mashack (32-6) lost 4-0 to Jefferson-Morgan's John Demaske (41-0) in the prelims, then edged Wyoming Area's Charles Johnson 9-6 in the tiebreaker.
- Campbell (30-6) fell 17-2 in 3:14 to Brookville's Taylor Ortz, but eliminated Westmont-Hilltop's Logan Blackburn 5-1.
- Ogozalek (42-7) gave up a late takedown to lose 6-4 to Jamestown's Faris Messai, but rebounded to edge Line Mountain's Cameron Newman 4-3 in the wrestlebacks. A point for a technical violation (late push out of bounds) against Newman made the difference.
- Alek Hummel (38-8) lost 5-2 to Benton's Logan Womelsdorf, but stayed alive with a 2-0 decision over Tyrone's Jared Beckwith.
- Martin (42-5) fell 7-4 to Kittaning's Jacob Robb, but came back strong with a 16-7 major decision over Columbia's Vanyel Letham-Peterson.