Red Raiders survive against rival BEA

By Kenny Varner
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Updated: January 9, 2015

BELLEFONTE – Two legendary wrestling programs met up Thursday night for bragging rights in Centre County when Bellefonte hosted heated rival Bald Eagle Area.

In this meeting, you could throw out all the records, scores and other stale cliché’s for this one as it came down to the next to last match of the night.

Going into the 200-pound match that put Bellefonte’s Tim Bedford against BEA’s Ben Bytheway, the Red Raiders held a 34-27 advantage going into the final two bouts.

In the first period, Bedford picked up the first score of the match, taking down Bytheway, taking a 2-0 advantage. With the takedown and backpoints, Bedford upped his lead to 7-0. While taking Bytheway down, Bedford injured his opponent and then after trying to resume the match, the pain was too much for the Bald Eagle grappler and handed the match to Bellefonte, clinching the meet and upping the lead to 40-27.

However, the Eagles did not give up in its final bout of the evening. Bald Eagle wrestler Josh Fye wasted little time pinning Bellefonte’s Ben Putnam, rounding out the score at 40-33.

In the first match of the night, the Red Raiders’ Shafiq Blake came out the winner of a forfeit at 106.

The Eagles picked up a forfeit of their own at 113 when Clayton Geidroc walked out to the mat and got his hand raised in victory.

Bald Eagle built up an 18-6 advantage, thanks to pins by Garrett Rigg (120) and Seth Koleno (126).

Brock Port ended the Bald Eagles’ pinning streak as he was able to take control of opponent Coby Bailey and pin him late in the third period, cutting the lead to 18-12 after the 132-pound weight class.

Teammate Chase Gardner kept the winning going for the home team when he toughed out a hard fought win against Mike Kachik, 4-0.

At 145, Trevor Corl kept the Bellefonte fortunes alive and well, posting a major 12-2 victory over Clint McCashlin, upping the score to 19-18.

With the first lead of the match, the Red Raiders kept it going at 152. Zach Musser pinned Mitchell Struble late in the third period to increase its lead to seven, 25-18.

At 160, Nate Rosenberger extended the Red Raiders lead to 31-18 via another Bald Eagle forfeit.

Colton Colmly ended the Bellefonte scoring run as he topped Dakota Bair 3-2 in the matches most exciting match, cutting the lead to 31-21.

Brien McChesney also picked up a clutch victory for the Red Raiders, muscling out a hard fought 5-4 victory over a tough Chase Myers.

In the 195-pound bout, Bald Eagle grappler Mitchell Taylor put the Eagles to within striking distance, pinning Sean Irwin.

But it wasn’t enough as the Red Raiders held on for the victory.