Beast of the East

[El-Jefe]

that Franklin Regional team had Devin Brown, Spencer Lee, Dominic Giannangeli, Michael Kemerer, Josh Maruca and Josh Shield that is one loaded team for a Public school. Don't think it is appropriate to compare Private and Public, I for one am sick of hearing about FCA. Thanks for mentioning North Allegheny, I barely recall them but that team was loaded. .

Why complain about FCA but not Franklin Regional? Lee and Brown both transferred from Saegertown, and Brown moved to Saegertown from Ohio. Were the others all originally from Murrysville?

For that matter, a lot of PA teams over time had their share of transfers. We just didn't hear about it as much then, or at least it was only notable locally and we had a lot less state-wide complaining about it.

 

[mvattivo]

Sorry, but I can't hold it. I wasn't a big Jeff Ecklof fan, but he had the funniest win I ever saw. It was a state quarter or semi against a really good kid, maybe Baglio from Redland, someone like that. It was an even, low scoring bout -- Ecklof was good at those against good opponents. It went into overtime. The first OT period began, and Ecklof just stood there. The other kid looked at him, confused and stood there, too. The ref didn't know what was going on, so after a while he blew his whistle and called stalling on both wrestlers. But Baglio(?) had a stall call carried over and Ecklof got the point and the win. I laughed for a week.

I absolutely remember that match. I also remember the electricity in the air when Joey Eckloff wrestled Donnie Jones for the title. They were both returning 2-time champs. I really thought Jones would win, but, Donnie started things off with a 360 spin into a nice double. It was a fun final.

 

[oldcougar65]

Thanks for mentioning North Allegheny, I barely recall them but that team was loaded. .

They were the #1 ranked team in the country, and they proved it on the mat. They beat St Ed's in a dual. They had 5 finalists one year w/ 4 champs. Ty Moore - RIP - was one of PA's all-time greats IMHO. He was a 4x state champ. At the Dapper Dan he decked a future 3x NCAA champ in about 30 seconds. His brother was national champ at Okie State(?).
Back then I always wondered: how'd he do against Kolat? They were there about the same 3-4 years, Kolat dominating AA, while North Allegheny dominated AAA. Didn't Moore knock off Brad Silimperi of Nazareth in the finals one year? Silimperi started that semi-dynasty at CR South.
And North Allegheny had Ray Brinzer for comic relief.

 

[oldcougar65]

I absolutely remember that match. I also remember the electricity in the air when Joey Eckloff wrestled Donnie Jones for the title. They were both returning 2-time champs. I really thought Jones would win, but, Donnie started things off with a 360 spin into a nice double. It was a fun final.

Back then, the PIAA required people to buy both AA and AAA if you bought them in advance. So we'd always go up to Hershey early to buy AAA tickets from AA people who didn't want them. Walking into that year's finals, I hit the jackpot. Some guy sold me a ticket on the 50 yard line 10 rows up from the mat (for face value). My friends had their backs against the wall up in the nosebleed seats.
Joey's initial takedown on Donnie was spectacular, I thought. And then he just controlled match, won big.
I said at the time, the only person in the gym that thought Ecklof would win was Joey himself. Before the bout, Donnie and Joey were standing together laughing as if they didn't have a care in the world.
That was the year Brad Silimperi brought his Council Rock South team out of nowhere to tie for the state championship. That team had been in existence for about 3 years. Won the state title in their 3rd or 4th year of existence with 3 finalists.

 

[mcpat]

From 88-90, North Allegheny had 9 individual state champions. If a team can beat that over a three year period, I’d love to read about it.

 

[Firemans2711]

Sorry, but I can't hold it. I wasn't a big Jeff Ecklof fan, but he had the funniest win I ever saw. It was a state quarter or semi against a really good kid, maybe Baglio from Redland, someone like that. It was an even, low scoring bout -- Ecklof was good at those against good opponents. It went into overtime. The first OT period began, and Ecklof just stood there. The other kid looked at him, confused and stood there, too. The ref didn't know what was going on, so after a while he blew his whistle and called stalling on both wrestlers. But Baglio(?) had a stall call carried over and Ecklof got the point and the win. I laughed for a week.

I could not believe baglio was just standing there. It has to go on about 25 30 seconds. The finals match that year should have been ecological vs. Rivera but Rivera got knocked off by o’brian in the semis. Rivera beat ecklof in the dual in double ot by riding him out. Then ecklof won in the district and regional finals. I think pinning Rivera in 30 seconds on a cement job.

Lastly, Baglio got revenge the next year in double OT and won the state title with a pin.

 

[oldcougar65]

I could not believe baglio was just standing there. It has to go on about 25 30 seconds. The finals match that year should have been ecological vs. Rivera but Rivera got knocked off by o’brian in the semis. Rivera beat ecklof in the dual in double ot by riding him out. Then ecklof won in the district and regional finals. I think pinning Rivera in 30 seconds on a cement job.

Lastly, Baglio got revenge the next year in double OT and won the state title with a pin.

O'brien was from Garnet Valley. For him it was the season of yellow snow. He was 3rd in District 1, then went to states and everything fell in place. Somehow the bracket was top heavy, with O'brien reaping the benefits in the bottom bracket and made it to the finals against all odds. The whole trip went to his head, and in the finals he acted like a total doofus, trying to throw Ecklof around and being generally annoying. Ecklof put up with it for a while, then just dropped the hammer.

The next season as I recall, California posters were all over the web claiming ultimate superiority. Easton went to Reno over xmas and CA's 4x state champ got himself hammered by Ciasulli the elder. Then at the Dapper Dan, the same kid faced Balgio (remember him from above) and got decked. Not much heard from CA after that.

 

[Firemans2711]

O'brien was from Garnet Valley. For him it was the season of yellow snow. He was 3rd in District 1, then went to states and everything fell in place. Somehow the bracket was top heavy, with O'brien reaping the benefits in the bottom bracket and made it to the finals against all odds. The whole trip went to his head, and in the finals he acted like a total doofus, trying to throw Ecklof around and being generally annoying. Ecklof put up with it for a while, then just dropped the hammer.

The next season as I recall, California posters were all over the web claiming ultimate superiority. Easton went to Reno over xmas and CA's 4x state champ got himself hammered by Ciasulli the elder. Then at the Dapper Dan, the same kid faced Balgio (remember him from above) and got decked. Not much heard from CA after that.

O’brian acted like a complete a**, trying to muscle and throw around eckloff but then you could see it finally annoyed him and he just tore o’brian apart. O’brian didn’t place the following year.

The cali kid was Darrel Vasquez, who was going to be there first 4x state champ. Ciasulli teched him. Just kept turning him with legs and a power half. Vasquez went to Cal Poly and went on to be a 2x AA and lost a season to mono or something related.

 

[BrockBronson]

Out of all these super teams we all mentioned. Has there ever been a complete home grown team? Meaning all the wrestlers started in the youth program and start their school in kindergarten. I would say no, just curious if it’s ever happened. At states duals every year, 90% of the schools have transfers

It’s been apart of wrestling for a long time

 

[STAND with PRIDE]

Out of all these super teams we all mentioned. Has there ever been a complete home grown team? Meaning all the wrestlers started in the youth program and start their school in kindergarten. I would say no, just curious if it’s ever happened. At states duals every year, 90% of the schools have transfers

It’s been apart of wrestling for a long time

You should know, you’re the only one WGAF.

 

[oldcougar65]

Northampton had a really loaded team in the early 2000's, led by the Eckloff brothers, Haines and Oplinger.

As boring as they were, Northampton did kinda control states for years. Looking back in 2003 they had 4 champs. Then in '04 here are the Northampton results:
1st: 3
3rd: 1
4th: 1
5th: 1
7th: 1
8th: 3

That speaks about a certain degree of depth.

 

[mcpat]

Out of all these super teams we all mentioned. Has there ever been a complete home grown team? Meaning all the wrestlers started in the youth program and start their school in kindergarten. I would say no, just curious if it’s ever happened. At states duals every year, 90% of the schools have transfers

It’s been apart of wrestling for a long time

Weren’t all the Central Dauphin kids from the same youth program, growing up wrestling in the Peppelman’s barn or something?

 

[oldcougar65]

Yeah, I have the movie.

 

[pawrestlersintn]

Going through the brackets, King of the Mountain was really down this year. A handful of elite kids who blew through their brackets unless another one was in it. Depth was really lacking compared to a few years ago.

 

[RoverNation05]

My screen name betrays my biases on this topic, but this conversation is very near and dear to my heart in one of the most exciting and fun eras of wrestling I’ve ever been around and I’m here to set the record straight on early 2000s District 11 wrestling, which my alma mater played an outsized role and I'd argue wasn't just a second fiddle to the '03 and '04 Northampton teams when considering all time greats.

• Northampton in 2003 and 2004 has to take a huge hit historically because they could not advance out of their district either year in the team portion of the tournament. Despite all of those state champs and medalists, they couldn’t beat little old Easton (laughs).
• In all seriousness, I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the country and world cover wrestling and have been in the building for some amazing high school events, the regular season/district dual matches between Easton and Northampton those two seasons are the best and most exciting I’ve been to (Blair’s first trip to Graham, the year of the Felipe Martinez cement mixer, comes in a close second). Incredibly high stakes (win and you probably win a state title, lose you go home) teams with tons of familiarly and year(s) long narrative build up, and a sold out crowd in a 4,000 seat gym. In 2003, Northampton beat Easton 31-29 in the second to last dual of the season the Saturday before District Duals – a dual that had to be moved to Liberty to accommodate the crowd (all four matches were held at Liberty's Memorial Gymnasium). A week later, Easton dropped the first bout of the night, then ripped off eight straight wins, highlighted by Brad Gentzle beating John Paukovitz 7-5 at 119, seven days after Paukovitz teched Gentzle in the dual, and Joey Ecklof dropped to 130 and lost to Bryan Hart, in the match that I think solidified Joey going up to 135 for the postseason, where he won a state title (Joey struggled at 130 that year with Hart who Donnie Jones beat 3-2 in quarters and Jay Morrison from Whitehall, who took 3rd) which totally flipped the tables of the team score. Easton won that dual 34-23 and went onto blast the field at state duals. On the individual side, Northampton won districts, Easton actually won regionals, and obviously Northampton’s four champs won them the state tournament (they medaled five), with Easton finishing in 2nd, medaled 7, and finished 22.5 points in front of third. During the season they won Reno, beat Edmond North (OK) in a dual, and took six matches from Blair. That Easton team was no slouch, despite losing potential state finalist Matt Lear to a broken ankle in December (third place the year before at 152 and was blitzing the field at Reno when his season ended).
• In 2004, the Easton-Northampton dual was the final match of the regular season, so they met again on back-to-back Saturday nights. In the regular season dual, Northampton won the flip, which let them control the matchup of arch rivals Billy Haydt and Sean Richmond at 160 (third and fourth at the state that year, one season after going 4th and 5th) – they bumped Haydt to 171 away from Richmond, and Northampton won the dual 31-30. Seven days later, Easton got OT wins at 103 and 112 (with Josh Oliver riding out Steve Mytych in a battle of the state’s 2nd and 4th place finishers that year), in the second and third bouts of the night, and got the Haydt-Richmond matchup they wanted to flip a result in the middle (both wrestlers went up to 171). That match went 1-1 in regulation, scoreless in OT, and Richmond took bottom in OTRO. Sean tells the story better than I do, but Richmond locked up a Peterson roll and put Haydt on his back, but the way Richmond landed is he came up facing the Easton crowd, and he got to sit and hold Haydt on his back while the points were awarded and watch that entire side of the gym blow up as the ref signaled reversal and he won. Then with Easton leading 26-22 going into 215, Marcus Millen beat Matt Snyder to clinch it. Once again, Easton won state duals rather handily. Easton probably lost the state tournament at regionals that year, losing two OT matches in the 3rd/4th bout at 103 and 215, plus another 3-2 match at 189 to “only” send six instead of nine to states, while Northampton went 3-0 in third place bouts to go from 8 to 11 in the dance, and of course all 11 medaled in one of the great state tournament weekends ever. That Easton team also had one of the great dual days ever, beating St. Paris Graham and Apple Valley within two hours of each other at the NHSCA Final Four.
• Northampton beat Easton at District Duals in 1999 and 2000 – in 1999, it was in D11 semis, and 200 is the year Northampton set the points record at individual states (but with only Ryan McCallum winning a title). But the rivalry was not back and forth in the postseason. In 2001 and 2002, Easton beat Northampton in both the regular season and D11 duals, the only splits of that era were 2003 and 2004, with Easton winning the two that counted. In fact, after 2000, Northampton did not beat Easton again at District Duals until the consolation final in 2022.
• Now coming to Northampton’s defense a little – Haines and Oplinger had very boring state finals, yes. Did I complain about them being just freakishly strong and stalling, also yes. But Josh’s semi against Phil Davis was also a full display of his skillset, he was a great chain wrestler once he got in exchanges, and was incredible in short offense. That’s one of those matches that really missed it’s era – if the entire tournament was streamed or televised like it is now (obviously not realistic with 2003 technology), and people saw that 9-7 barnburner between two elite guys rather than the 2-0 snoozer he won in finals, I think he gets remembered differently. He also had a pretty long kill list – Patrick Bond twice, Phil Davis, Josh Arnone, Luke Lofthouse, James Yonushonis. Haines blew a disc out in his back out during his redshirt year and then tore his ACL when he came back and never was healthy enough to put it together in college. Similarly with Oplinger, it feels like the match everybody remembers of his is the pulling the singlet point in OT against LoPiccollo in 2003, but he also posted a state tourney win over Phil Davis (in 2002 when he went to finals at 189 as a sophomore), and his senior year he kind of dominated future NFL linebacker Scott McKillop on his feet. Oplinger was kind of a tweener in college – he’d actually be a better fit for heavyweight now as like a 230-240 pound guy rather than cutting down to 197 like he did at the time, but even still was a blood-round finisher. I’m working on a project now with Lehigh Valley Live on this era of wrestling, so some of this is recall and some of this is working off of research I’ve done relatively recently, my memory isn’t THAT good.
• Jeff Ecklof was the Kellen Russell of early 2000s Pennsylvania wrestling – he had so many tools in his toolkit and was so talented, and every so often decided to use them, which made him so frustrating to watch as an opposing fan. He was so hard to score on, so deadly in short offense, so explosive when he pulled the trigger. And for as slow as his style could be sometimes, he was incredibly brash and a major personality off the mat. And his high school wins list is great – Mark Perry twice, Brandon Becker, Jarrod King, Dave Erwin, Matt Ciasulli. He was also good enough to All American as a true freshman for Oklahoma, with wins over Travis Paulson and Brian Stith at NCAAs – then never wrestled again in college.
• Which brings me to the 2002 season you’re talking about – Matt Ciasulli from Easton vaulted up to #1 in the country at 125 when he beat Darrell Vazquez out in the Reno final – 15-5 was the final score, and whoever had the account here was correct, he just threw in double boots and rode the snot out of Vazquez, turned him a bunch, etc. Ecklof was at 130 that year, and both had won state titles in 2001 (the aforementioned Ecklof-Baglio stalling match, while Ciasulli was OW at states after shutting out the field). Ciasulli was the best of the Red Hawk guys, which was run by his dad at the time, and it’s actually uncanny how much watching Nate Desmond now is like watching Matt 20 years ago, same style, same strengths, Nate is better and more varied on his feet, not quite the leg rider Matt was. Anyway, Ecklof told Nick Fiero of the Express-Times in an interview after that Ciasulli-Vazquez match that he was going to cut down to 125 for Easton and beat Ciasulli. The 2002 Easton-Northampton match was at Easton, and the most palpable pre-match buzz I remember in a gym was walking in and seeing Ecklof and Ciasulli across from each other on the bout board at 125 that night. He actually did it. Ecklof then ripped a cement mixer for 4 points in the first minute of the match, then just did not engage the remaining five minuets, and hung on and won 4-3.
• Easton was way better than Northampton in 2002 and won that dual and District Duals handily, and finished #2 in the country behind Blair, and went onto roll the field at State Duals. (I think 2002 is the best Easton dual team they’ve ever had – I think @smalls103 and I have had this conversation off air about them vs. 1996 and I’d love to do it for a very small audience). They had two big postseason injuries that kept their states point-total down (lost very likely medalists at 130, Bryan Hart and 189, Marcus Millen, plus dropped three 3rd/4th place matches at regionals all to state medalists and still put up triple digit points at states). I think that Easton team set the Reno record with 245 points and ten medalists, plus beat St. Ed’s in a dual. Not quite a super team at the next level in terms of Jordan Oliver type kids, but super deep – they had one All American (Alex Krom), five DI NCAA qualifiers (Krom, Chad Sportelli, Matt Ciasulli, Bryan Hart, Sean Richmond), plus one more DI wrestler (Bryan Rizzo – Coleman Scott’s last PA loss in high school), two Division II All Americans (Mike Rogers and Jason Groller), and an FBS football player (Marcus Millen). That list doesn’t include state bronze medalist Matt Lear, who lost in OTRO to Nathan Galloway in quarters and went into the Marines rather than pursue college wrestling after high school or state finalist Dan Brown, who got into some prestigious architecture program and passed on D1 wrestling offers.
• I’ve often made the argument that Joey Ecklof is the worst three-time state champion in Pennsylvania history. Which makes him…a three-time state champion. Hell of a nice guy, the Donnie Jones match was such an all-timer and I think the absolute best he ever wrestled in his life. He took a lot of losses for how decorated his career is (he’s sub .500 in his career against wrestlers from Whitehall, for instance, which is an incredibly weird state) and particularly his first state title was “catch fire on weekend in Hershey” rather than being the dominant guy in the weight that year. Going into the postseason in 2005, there was lots of chatter than he wasn’t going to win anywhere – he’d already lost to Tim McGoldrick, who was at 145 along with Joe Caramanica, who had the better of Ecklof when they were both at 130 in 2003 – and that would have been just to get out of D11, he had Donnie Jones at 152, and there was a lot of “no way he beats Austin Carter” if he goes up to 160. Then in the state tournament, Jones was dominating while Ecklof scraped by, though to be fair, Ecklof had 2006 state champ Brent Fiorito in his semi while Jones teched Ryan Uber (?) and the contrast in those matches back-to-back in the morning is where the most stark “Jones is going to kill him” talk seemed to start. Then of course, the match happened, Ecklof scored on the quick slide by, then the crazy 360 takedown off of Jones’s ankle pick, and he just rode the wave.
• In terms of Northampon controlling states in the early 2000s, here are the Easton/Northampton finishes from 2000-2004

2000: Northampton 1st, 137.5 / Easton 2nd, 90.5 / third place 57
2001: Easton 1st 112 / Northampton 3rd 61.5
2002: Easton 1st 100 / Northampton 4th 59
2003: Northampton 1st 98 / Easton 2nd 80.5 / third place 58
2004: Northampton 1st 132.5 / Easton 2nd 83.5 / third place 68
Easton then went 3rd, 8th, 3rd, 4th, 13th, while Northampton fell to 15th, 37th, 8th, 5th, 6th to close out the decade. In the 1990s, Northampton won in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998, while Easton win in 1996 and 1997. Nazareth didn't actually win a state title until taking the state tournament in 2006, then state duals in 2007. They were eternal bridesmaids in the 1990s while Easton and Northampton were trading titles. That Easton 2001 team had two champs and seven medalists for probably their best state tournament ever, but didn't quite have the full season the 2002 team had a year later, as they lost to St. Ed's, only took 3rd at Reno, were less close against Blair, etc. But they had more fall their way in the postseason.

• The 2005 state tournament finish was insane, with Connellsville and Council Rock South tying at 68 points, with Easton finishing with 67. Easton had a nine-point lead headed into finals, but lost their only chance to stretch the lead at 103 when Jordan Oliver lost to Matt Kyler. Council Rock South cut Easton’s lead to five despite returning state champ Rick Rappo getting upset at 112, because his brother Mike stunned Brad Pataky at 119 when Pataky was #1 in the country. Connellsville got an OT win by Steve Bell at 125 to also pull within five of the Red Rovers, then they vaulted ahead of Easton when Ashtin Primus pinned in the finals at 135. Council Rock South shot ahead of Easton and into a tie with Connesllsville with an Austin Carter pin in the finals at 160 – talk about playing H-O-R-S-E in the last round!
• One the Easton side of that tournament, they had a team point deducted after the consolation final at 130 when Josh Oliver lost then threw his headgear – that point stays on and it was a three-way tie for the title (Josh also got pinned by Steve Bell in the State Dual final when he slid off of Bell trying to leg ride out the third period clinging to a 6-5 lead, then gave up thinking time was up, and it went from a reversal to a fall with :01 left on the clock, not the finest postseason for the elder Oliver). Easton also dropped a third-place bout in the final seconds when Alex Krom got called for an illegal head scissors in a scramble that also had title implications (Krom would have had Primus in the final had he not given up back points on an ill-fated roll attempt late in the third period of his quarter to go from up 3-2 to losing 5-3– and I think most longtime Easton fans would tell you, if they could go back and give one former Red Rover a state title, it’s Alex Krom, just a heartbreaking tournament), and suffered the massive upset of 2x returning finalist Seth Ciasulli (who was undefeated in his career against state champ Steve Bell) losing to Kyle Fluke in the first round – who he then pinned on the backside. They had double the medals of Connellsville and CRS (6 to 3), but also was an “everything kind of goes wrong” tournament for the Red Rovers – who beat Great Bridge in a dual, the Cyler Sanderson Wasatch team at Reno, set a Manheim record with eight champions, and took six bouts from Blair in a dual. Really good team that ended the year without either of the two big postseason championships.

 

[mvattivo]

My screen name betrays my biases on this topic, but this conversation is very near and dear to my heart in one of the most exciting and fun eras of wrestling I’ve ever been around and I’m here to set the record straight on early 2000s District 11 wrestling, which my alma mater played an outsized role and I'd argue wasn't just a second fiddle to the '03 and '04 Northampton teams when considering all time greats.

• Northampton in 2003 and 2004 has to take a huge hit historically because they could not advance out of their district either year in the team portion of the tournament. Despite all of those state champs and medalists, they couldn’t beat little old Easton (laughs).
• In all seriousness, I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the country and world cover wrestling and have been in the building for some amazing high school events, the regular season/district dual matches between Easton and Northampton those two seasons are the best and most exciting I’ve been to (Blair’s first trip to Graham, the year of the Felipe Martinez cement mixer, comes in a close second). Incredibly high stakes (win and you probably win a state title, lose you go home) teams with tons of familiarly and year(s) long narrative build up, and a sold out crowd in a 4,000 seat gym. In 2003, Northampton beat Easton 31-29 in the second to last dual of the season the Saturday before District Duals – a dual that had to be moved to Liberty to accommodate the crowd (all four matches were held at Liberty's Memorial Gymnasium). A week later, Easton dropped the first bout of the night, then ripped off eight straight wins, highlighted by Brad Gentzle beating John Paukovitz 7-5 at 119, seven days after Paukovitz teched Gentzle in the dual, and Joey Ecklof dropped to 130 and lost to Bryan Hart, in the match that I think solidified Joey going up to 135 for the postseason, where he won a state title (Joey struggled at 130 that year with Hart who Donnie Jones beat 3-2 in quarters and Jay Morrison from Whitehall, who took 3rd) which totally flipped the tables of the team score. Easton won that dual 34-23 and went onto blast the field at state duals. On the individual side, Northampton won districts, Easton actually won regionals, and obviously Northampton’s four champs won them the state tournament (they medaled five), with Easton finishing in 2nd, medaled 7, and finished 22.5 points in front of third. During the season they won Reno, beat Edmond North (OK) in a dual, and took six matches from Blair. That Easton team was no slouch, despite losing potential state finalist Matt Lear to a broken ankle in December (third place the year before at 152 and was blitzing the field at Reno when his season ended).
• In 2004, the Easton-Northampton dual was the final match of the regular season, so they met again on back-to-back Saturday nights. In the regular season dual, Northampton won the flip, which let them control the matchup of arch rivals Billy Haydt and Sean Richmond at 160 (third and fourth at the state that year, one season after going 4th and 5th) – they bumped Haydt to 171 away from Richmond, and Northampton won the dual 31-30. Seven days later, Easton got OT wins at 103 and 112 (with Josh Oliver riding out Steve Mytych in a battle of the state’s 2nd and 4th place finishers that year), in the second and third bouts of the night, and got the Haydt-Richmond matchup they wanted to flip a result in the middle (both wrestlers went up to 171). That match went 1-1 in regulation, scoreless in OT, and Richmond took bottom in OTRO. Sean tells the story better than I do, but Richmond locked up a Peterson roll and put Haydt on his back, but the way Richmond landed is he came up facing the Easton crowd, and he got to sit and hold Haydt on his back while the points were awarded and watch that entire side of the gym blow up as the ref signaled reversal and he won. Then with Easton leading 26-22 going into 215, Marcus Millen beat Matt Snyder to clinch it. Once again, Easton won state duals rather handily. Easton probably lost the state tournament at regionals that year, losing two OT matches in the 3rd/4th bout at 103 and 215, plus another 3-2 match at 189 to “only” send six instead of nine to states, while Northampton went 3-0 in third place bouts to go from 8 to 11 in the dance, and of course all 11 medaled in one of the great state tournament weekends ever. That Easton team also had one of the great dual days ever, beating St. Paris Graham and Apple Valley within two hours of each other at the NHSCA Final Four.
• Northampton beat Easton at District Duals in 1999 and 2000 – in 1999, it was in D11 semis, and 200 is the year Northampton set the points record at individual states (but with only Ryan McCallum winning a title). But the rivalry was not back and forth in the postseason. In 2001 and 2002, Easton beat Northampton in both the regular season and D11 duals, the only splits of that era were 2003 and 2004, with Easton winning the two that counted. In fact, after 2000, Northampton did not beat Easton again at District Duals until the consolation final in 2022.
• Now coming to Northampton’s defense a little – Haines and Oplinger had very boring state finals, yes. Did I complain about them being just freakishly strong and stalling, also yes. But Josh’s semi against Phil Davis was also a full display of his skillset, he was a great chain wrestler once he got in exchanges, and was incredible in short offense. That’s one of those matches that really missed it’s era – if the entire tournament was streamed or televised like it is now (obviously not realistic with 2003 technology), and people saw that 9-7 barnburner between two elite guys rather than the 2-0 snoozer he won in finals, I think he gets remembered differently. He also had a pretty long kill list – Patrick Bond twice, Phil Davis, Josh Arnone, Luke Lofthouse, James Yonushonis. Haines blew a disc out in his back out during his redshirt year and then tore his ACL when he came back and never was healthy enough to put it together in college. Similarly with Oplinger, it feels like the match everybody remembers of his is the pulling the singlet point in OT against LoPiccollo in 2003, but he also posted a state tourney win over Phil Davis (in 2002 when he went to finals at 189 as a sophomore), and his senior year he kind of dominated future NFL linebacker Scott McKillop on his feet. Oplinger was kind of a tweener in college – he’d actually be a better fit for heavyweight now as like a 230-240 pound guy rather than cutting down to 197 like he did at the time, but even still was a blood-round finisher. I’m working on a project now with Lehigh Valley Live on this era of wrestling, so some of this is recall and some of this is working off of research I’ve done relatively recently, my memory isn’t THAT good.
• Jeff Ecklof was the Kellen Russell of early 2000s Pennsylvania wrestling – he had so many tools in his toolkit and was so talented, and every so often decided to use them, which made him so frustrating to watch as an opposing fan. He was so hard to score on, so deadly in short offense, so explosive when he pulled the trigger. And for as slow as his style could be sometimes, he was incredibly brash and a major personality off the mat. And his high school wins list is great – Mark Perry twice, Brandon Becker, Jarrod King, Dave Erwin, Matt Ciasulli. He was also good enough to All American as a true freshman for Oklahoma, with wins over Travis Paulson and Brian Stith at NCAAs – then never wrestled again in college.
• Which brings me to the 2002 season you’re talking about – Matt Ciasulli from Easton vaulted up to #1 in the country at 125 when he beat Darrell Vazquez out in the Reno final – 15-5 was the final score, and whoever had the account here was correct, he just threw in double boots and rode the snot out of Vazquez, turned him a bunch, etc. Ecklof was at 130 that year, and both had won state titles in 2001 (the aforementioned Ecklof-Baglio stalling match, while Ciasulli was OW at states after shutting out the field). Ciasulli was the best of the Red Hawk guys, which was run by his dad at the time, and it’s actually uncanny how much watching Nate Desmond now is like watching Matt 20 years ago, same style, same strengths, Nate is better and more varied on his feet, not quite the leg rider Matt was. Anyway, Ecklof told Nick Fiero of the Express-Times in an interview after that Ciasulli-Vazquez match that he was going to cut down to 125 for Easton and beat Ciasulli. The 2002 Easton-Northampton match was at Easton, and the most palpable pre-match buzz I remember in a gym was walking in and seeing Ecklof and Ciasulli across from each other on the bout board at 125 that night. He actually did it. Ecklof then ripped a cement mixer for 4 points in the first minute of the match, then just did not engage the remaining five minuets, and hung on and won 4-3.
• Easton was way better than Northampton in 2002 and won that dual and District Duals handily, and finished #2 in the country behind Blair, and went onto roll the field at State Duals. (I think 2002 is the best Easton dual team they’ve ever had – I think @smalls103 and I have had this conversation off air about them vs. 1996 and I’d love to do it for a very small audience). They had two big postseason injuries that kept their states point-total down (lost very likely medalists at 130, Bryan Hart and 189, Marcus Millen, plus dropped three 3rd/4th place matches at regionals all to state medalists and still put up triple digit points at states). I think that Easton team set the Reno record with 245 points and ten medalists, plus beat St. Ed’s in a dual. Not quite a super team at the next level in terms of Jordan Oliver type kids, but super deep – they had one All American (Alex Krom), five DI NCAA qualifiers (Krom, Chad Sportelli, Matt Ciasulli, Bryan Hart, Sean Richmond), plus one more DI wrestler (Bryan Rizzo – Coleman Scott’s last PA loss in high school), two Division II All Americans (Mike Rogers and Jason Groller), and an FBS football player (Marcus Millen). That list doesn’t include state bronze medalist Matt Lear, who lost in OTRO to Nathan Galloway in quarters and went into the Marines rather than pursue college wrestling after high school.
• I’ve often made the argument that Joey Ecklof is the worst three-time state champion in Pennsylvania history. Which makes him…a three-time state champion. Hell of a nice guy, the Donnie Jones match was such an all-timer and I think the absolute best he ever wrestled in his life. He took a lot of losses for how decorated his career is (he’s sub .500 in his career against wrestlers from Whitehall, for instance, which is an incredibly weird state) and particularly his first state title was “catch fire on weekend in Hershey” rather than being the dominant guy in the weight that year. Going into the postseason in 2005, there was lots of chatter than he wasn’t going to win anywhere – he’d already lost to Tim McGoldrick, who was at 145 along with Joe Caramanica, who had the better of Ecklof when they were both at 130 in 2003 – and that would have been just to get out of D11, he had Donnie Jones at 152, and there was a lot of “no way he beats Austin Carter” if he goes up to 160. Then in the state tournament, Jones was dominating while Ecklof scraped by, though to be fair, Ecklof had 2006 state champ Brent Fiorito in his semi while Jones teched Ryan Uber (?) and the contrast in those matches back-to-back in the morning is where the most stark “Jones is going to kill him” talk seemed to start. Then of course, the match happened, Ecklof scored on the quick slide by, then the crazy 360 takedown off of Jones’s ankle pick, and he just rode the wave.
• In terms of Northampon controlling states in the early 2000s, here are the Easton/Northampton finishes from 2000-2004

2000: Northampton 1st, 137.5 / Easton 2nd, 90.5 / third place 57
2001: Easton 1st 112 / Northampton 3rd 61.5
2002: Easton 1st 100 / Northampton 4th 59
2003: Northampton 1st 98 / Easton 2nd 80.5 / third place 58
2004: Northampton 1st 132.5 / Easton 2nd 83.5 / third place 68
Easton then went 3rd, 8th, 3rd, 4th, 13th, while Northampton fell to 15th, 37th, 8th, 5th, 6th to close out the decade. In the 1990s, Northampton won in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998, while Easton win in 1996 and 1997. Nazareth didn't actually win a state title until taking the state tournament in 2006, then state duals in 2007. They were eternal bridesmaids in the 1990s while Easton and Northampton were trading titles. That Easton 2001 team had two champs and seven medalists for probably their best state tournament ever, but didn't quite have the full season the 2002 team had a year later, as they lost to St. Ed's, only took 3rd at Reno, were less close against Blair, etc. But they had more fall their way in the postseason.

• The 2005 state tournament finish was insane, with Connellsville and Council Rock South tying at 68 points, with Easton finishing with 67. Easton had a nine-point lead headed into finals, but lost their only chance to stretch the lead at 103 when Jordan Oliver lost to Matt Kyler. Council Rock South cut Easton’s lead to five despite returning state champ Rick Rappo getting upset at 112, because his brother Mike stunned Brad Pataky at 119 when Pataky was #1 in the country. Connellsville got an OT win by Steve Bell at 125 to also pull within five of the Red Rovers, then they vaulted ahead of Easton when Ashtin Primus pinned in the finals at 135. Council Rock South shot ahead of Easton and into a tie with Connesllsville with an Austin Carter pin in the finals at 160 – talk about playing H-O-R-S-E in the last round!
• One the Easton side of that tournament, they had a team point deducted after the consolation final at 130 when Josh Oliver lost then threw his headgear – that point stays on and it was a three-way tie for the title (Josh also got pinned by Steve Bell in the State Dual final when he slid off of Bell trying to leg ride out the third period clinging to a 6-5 lead, then gave up thinking time was up, and it went from a reversal to a fall with :01 left on the clock, not the finest postseason for the elder Oliver). Easton also dropped a third-place bout in the final seconds when Alex Krom got called for an illegal head scissors in a scramble that also had title implications (Krom would have had Primus in the final had he not given up back points on an ill-fated roll attempt late in the third period of his quarter to go from up 3-2 to losing 5-3– and I think most longtime Easton fans would tell you, if they could go back and give one former Red Rover a state title, it’s Alex Krom, just a heartbreaking tournament), and suffered the massive upset of 2x returning finalist Seth Ciasulli (who was undefeated in his career against state champ Steve Bell) losing to Kyle Fluke in the first round – who he then pinned on the backside. They had double the medals of Connellsville and CRS (6 to 3), but also was an “everything kind of goes wrong” tournament for the Red Rovers – who beat Great Bridge in a dual, the Cyler Sanderson Wasatch team at Reno, set a Manheim record with eight champions, and took six bouts from Blair in a dual. Really good team that ended the year without either of the two big postseason championships.

Awesome stuff! It brought back so many great memories!

Way back in the days before my son was born (He was born in 2006), I used to follow PA high school results so much more than I do now, and I still go to States for every session, every year. Hell, I used to do rankings a long time ago, and had some pretty famous wrestler's dad's writing me hate mail for where I had their son's ranked as Freshman. I also used to run AA, AAA & NCAA's fantasy leagues that included Willie Saylor. I used to use a fantasy football league and replace the football players with wrestlers so that we could do a live draft right from the site. It took a long time for me to set that up, but, it was great for many years. Once my son was born and my job changed, I haven't had time to keep up with things as closely as I used to, but, I have so many great memories from those years.

 

[RoverNation05]

Awesome stuff! It brought back so many great memories!

Way back in the days before my son was born (He was born in 2006), I used to follow PA high school results so much more than I do now, and I still go to States for every session, every year. Hell, I used to do rankings a long time ago, and had some pretty famous wrestler's dad's writing me hate mail for where I had their son's ranked as Freshman. I also used to run AA, AAA & NCAA's fantasy leagues that included Willie Saylor. I used to use a fantasy football league and replace the football players with wrestlers so that we could do a live draft right from the site. It took a long time for me to set that up, but, it was great for many years. Once my son was born and my job changed, I haven't had time to keep up with things as closely as I used to, but, I have so many great memories from those years.

I used to read your rankings all the time and I remember you as a staple of the good old days on the D11 and WrestlingReport forums - I’m sure we’ve bantered and argued. I think in 2005 we put your picks in with our states pool we ran at Easton to see how everybody measured up against you.

 

[Firemans2711]

My screen name betrays my biases on this topic, but this conversation is very near and dear to my heart in one of the most exciting and fun eras of wrestling I’ve ever been around and I’m here to set the record straight on early 2000s District 11 wrestling, which my alma mater played an outsized role and I'd argue wasn't just a second fiddle to the '03 and '04 Northampton teams when considering all time greats.

• Northampton in 2003 and 2004 has to take a huge hit historically because they could not advance out of their district either year in the team portion of the tournament. Despite all of those state champs and medalists, they couldn’t beat little old Easton (laughs).
• In all seriousness, I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the country and world cover wrestling and have been in the building for some amazing high school events, the regular season/district dual matches between Easton and Northampton those two seasons are the best and most exciting I’ve been to (Blair’s first trip to Graham, the year of the Felipe Martinez cement mixer, comes in a close second). Incredibly high stakes (win and you probably win a state title, lose you go home) teams with tons of familiarly and year(s) long narrative build up, and a sold out crowd in a 4,000 seat gym. In 2003, Northampton beat Easton 31-29 in the second to last dual of the season the Saturday before District Duals – a dual that had to be moved to Liberty to accommodate the crowd (all four matches were held at Liberty's Memorial Gymnasium). A week later, Easton dropped the first bout of the night, then ripped off eight straight wins, highlighted by Brad Gentzle beating John Paukovitz 7-5 at 119, seven days after Paukovitz teched Gentzle in the dual, and Joey Ecklof dropped to 130 and lost to Bryan Hart, in the match that I think solidified Joey going up to 135 for the postseason, where he won a state title (Joey struggled at 130 that year with Hart who Donnie Jones beat 3-2 in quarters and Jay Morrison from Whitehall, who took 3rd) which totally flipped the tables of the team score. Easton won that dual 34-23 and went onto blast the field at state duals. On the individual side, Northampton won districts, Easton actually won regionals, and obviously Northampton’s four champs won them the state tournament (they medaled five), with Easton finishing in 2nd, medaled 7, and finished 22.5 points in front of third. During the season they won Reno, beat Edmond North (OK) in a dual, and took six matches from Blair. That Easton team was no slouch, despite losing potential state finalist Matt Lear to a broken ankle in December (third place the year before at 152 and was blitzing the field at Reno when his season ended).
• In 2004, the Easton-Northampton dual was the final match of the regular season, so they met again on back-to-back Saturday nights. In the regular season dual, Northampton won the flip, which let them control the matchup of arch rivals Billy Haydt and Sean Richmond at 160 (third and fourth at the state that year, one season after going 4th and 5th) – they bumped Haydt to 171 away from Richmond, and Northampton won the dual 31-30. Seven days later, Easton got OT wins at 103 and 112 (with Josh Oliver riding out Steve Mytych in a battle of the state’s 2nd and 4th place finishers that year), in the second and third bouts of the night, and got the Haydt-Richmond matchup they wanted to flip a result in the middle (both wrestlers went up to 171). That match went 1-1 in regulation, scoreless in OT, and Richmond took bottom in OTRO. Sean tells the story better than I do, but Richmond locked up a Peterson roll and put Haydt on his back, but the way Richmond landed is he came up facing the Easton crowd, and he got to sit and hold Haydt on his back while the points were awarded and watch that entire side of the gym blow up as the ref signaled reversal and he won. Then with Easton leading 26-22 going into 215, Marcus Millen beat Matt Snyder to clinch it. Once again, Easton won state duals rather handily. Easton probably lost the state tournament at regionals that year, losing two OT matches in the 3rd/4th bout at 103 and 215, plus another 3-2 match at 189 to “only” send six instead of nine to states, while Northampton went 3-0 in third place bouts to go from 8 to 11 in the dance, and of course all 11 medaled in one of the great state tournament weekends ever. That Easton team also had one of the great dual days ever, beating St. Paris Graham and Apple Valley within two hours of each other at the NHSCA Final Four.
• Northampton beat Easton at District Duals in 1999 and 2000 – in 1999, it was in D11 semis, and 200 is the year Northampton set the points record at individual states (but with only Ryan McCallum winning a title). But the rivalry was not back and forth in the postseason. In 2001 and 2002, Easton beat Northampton in both the regular season and D11 duals, the only splits of that era were 2003 and 2004, with Easton winning the two that counted. In fact, after 2000, Northampton did not beat Easton again at District Duals until the consolation final in 2022.
• Now coming to Northampton’s defense a little – Haines and Oplinger had very boring state finals, yes. Did I complain about them being just freakishly strong and stalling, also yes. But Josh’s semi against Phil Davis was also a full display of his skillset, he was a great chain wrestler once he got in exchanges, and was incredible in short offense. That’s one of those matches that really missed it’s era – if the entire tournament was streamed or televised like it is now (obviously not realistic with 2003 technology), and people saw that 9-7 barnburner between two elite guys rather than the 2-0 snoozer he won in finals, I think he gets remembered differently. He also had a pretty long kill list – Patrick Bond twice, Phil Davis, Josh Arnone, Luke Lofthouse, James Yonushonis. Haines blew a disc out in his back out during his redshirt year and then tore his ACL when he came back and never was healthy enough to put it together in college. Similarly with Oplinger, it feels like the match everybody remembers of his is the pulling the singlet point in OT against LoPiccollo in 2003, but he also posted a state tourney win over Phil Davis (in 2002 when he went to finals at 189 as a sophomore), and his senior year he kind of dominated future NFL linebacker Scott McKillop on his feet. Oplinger was kind of a tweener in college – he’d actually be a better fit for heavyweight now as like a 230-240 pound guy rather than cutting down to 197 like he did at the time, but even still was a blood-round finisher. I’m working on a project now with Lehigh Valley Live on this era of wrestling, so some of this is recall and some of this is working off of research I’ve done relatively recently, my memory isn’t THAT good.
• Jeff Ecklof was the Kellen Russell of early 2000s Pennsylvania wrestling – he had so many tools in his toolkit and was so talented, and every so often decided to use them, which made him so frustrating to watch as an opposing fan. He was so hard to score on, so deadly in short offense, so explosive when he pulled the trigger. And for as slow as his style could be sometimes, he was incredibly brash and a major personality off the mat. And his high school wins list is great – Mark Perry twice, Brandon Becker, Jarrod King, Dave Erwin, Matt Ciasulli. He was also good enough to All American as a true freshman for Oklahoma, with wins over Travis Paulson and Brian Stith at NCAAs – then never wrestled again in college.
• Which brings me to the 2002 season you’re talking about – Matt Ciasulli from Easton vaulted up to #1 in the country at 125 when he beat Darrell Vazquez out in the Reno final – 15-5 was the final score, and whoever had the account here was correct, he just threw in double boots and rode the snot out of Vazquez, turned him a bunch, etc. Ecklof was at 130 that year, and both had won state titles in 2001 (the aforementioned Ecklof-Baglio stalling match, while Ciasulli was OW at states after shutting out the field). Ciasulli was the best of the Red Hawk guys, which was run by his dad at the time, and it’s actually uncanny how much watching Nate Desmond now is like watching Matt 20 years ago, same style, same strengths, Nate is better and more varied on his feet, not quite the leg rider Matt was. Anyway, Ecklof told Nick Fiero of the Express-Times in an interview after that Ciasulli-Vazquez match that he was going to cut down to 125 for Easton and beat Ciasulli. The 2002 Easton-Northampton match was at Easton, and the most palpable pre-match buzz I remember in a gym was walking in and seeing Ecklof and Ciasulli across from each other on the bout board at 125 that night. He actually did it. Ecklof then ripped a cement mixer for 4 points in the first minute of the match, then just did not engage the remaining five minuets, and hung on and won 4-3.
• Easton was way better than Northampton in 2002 and won that dual and District Duals handily, and finished #2 in the country behind Blair, and went onto roll the field at State Duals. (I think 2002 is the best Easton dual team they’ve ever had – I think @smalls103 and I have had this conversation off air about them vs. 1996 and I’d love to do it for a very small audience). They had two big postseason injuries that kept their states point-total down (lost very likely medalists at 130, Bryan Hart and 189, Marcus Millen, plus dropped three 3rd/4th place matches at regionals all to state medalists and still put up triple digit points at states). I think that Easton team set the Reno record with 245 points and ten medalists, plus beat St. Ed’s in a dual. Not quite a super team at the next level in terms of Jordan Oliver type kids, but super deep – they had one All American (Alex Krom), five DI NCAA qualifiers (Krom, Chad Sportelli, Matt Ciasulli, Bryan Hart, Sean Richmond), plus one more DI wrestler (Bryan Rizzo – Coleman Scott’s last PA loss in high school), two Division II All Americans (Mike Rogers and Jason Groller), and an FBS football player (Marcus Millen). That list doesn’t include state bronze medalist Matt Lear, who lost in OTRO to Nathan Galloway in quarters and went into the Marines rather than pursue college wrestling after high school.
• I’ve often made the argument that Joey Ecklof is the worst three-time state champion in Pennsylvania history. Which makes him…a three-time state champion. Hell of a nice guy, the Donnie Jones match was such an all-timer and I think the absolute best he ever wrestled in his life. He took a lot of losses for how decorated his career is (he’s sub .500 in his career against wrestlers from Whitehall, for instance, which is an incredibly weird state) and particularly his first state title was “catch fire on weekend in Hershey” rather than being the dominant guy in the weight that year. Going into the postseason in 2005, there was lots of chatter than he wasn’t going to win anywhere – he’d already lost to Tim McGoldrick, who was at 145 along with Joe Caramanica, who had the better of Ecklof when they were both at 130 in 2003 – and that would have been just to get out of D11, he had Donnie Jones at 152, and there was a lot of “no way he beats Austin Carter” if he goes up to 160. Then in the state tournament, Jones was dominating while Ecklof scraped by, though to be fair, Ecklof had 2006 state champ Brent Fiorito in his semi while Jones teched Ryan Uber (?) and the contrast in those matches back-to-back in the morning is where the most stark “Jones is going to kill him” talk seemed to start. Then of course, the match happened, Ecklof scored on the quick slide by, then the crazy 360 takedown off of Jones’s ankle pick, and he just rode the wave.
• In terms of Northampon controlling states in the early 2000s, here are the Easton/Northampton finishes from 2000-2004

2000: Northampton 1st, 137.5 / Easton 2nd, 90.5 / third place 57
2001: Easton 1st 112 / Northampton 3rd 61.5
2002: Easton 1st 100 / Northampton 4th 59
2003: Northampton 1st 98 / Easton 2nd 80.5 / third place 58
2004: Northampton 1st 132.5 / Easton 2nd 83.5 / third place 68
Easton then went 3rd, 8th, 3rd, 4th, 13th, while Northampton fell to 15th, 37th, 8th, 5th, 6th to close out the decade. In the 1990s, Northampton won in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998, while Easton win in 1996 and 1997. Nazareth didn't actually win a state title until taking the state tournament in 2006, then state duals in 2007. They were eternal bridesmaids in the 1990s while Easton and Northampton were trading titles. That Easton 2001 team had two champs and seven medalists for probably their best state tournament ever, but didn't quite have the full season the 2002 team had a year later, as they lost to St. Ed's, only took 3rd at Reno, were less close against Blair, etc. But they had more fall their way in the postseason.

• The 2005 state tournament finish was insane, with Connellsville and Council Rock South tying at 68 points, with Easton finishing with 67. Easton had a nine-point lead headed into finals, but lost their only chance to stretch the lead at 103 when Jordan Oliver lost to Matt Kyler. Council Rock South cut Easton’s lead to five despite returning state champ Rick Rappo getting upset at 112, because his brother Mike stunned Brad Pataky at 119 when Pataky was #1 in the country. Connellsville got an OT win by Steve Bell at 125 to also pull within five of the Red Rovers, then they vaulted ahead of Easton when Ashtin Primus pinned in the finals at 135. Council Rock South shot ahead of Easton and into a tie with Connesllsville with an Austin Carter pin in the finals at 160 – talk about playing H-O-R-S-E in the last round!
• One the Easton side of that tournament, they had a team point deducted after the consolation final at 130 when Josh Oliver lost then threw his headgear – that point stays on and it was a three-way tie for the title (Josh also got pinned by Steve Bell in the State Dual final when he slid off of Bell trying to leg ride out the third period clinging to a 6-5 lead, then gave up thinking time was up, and it went from a reversal to a fall with :01 left on the clock, not the finest postseason for the elder Oliver). Easton also dropped a third-place bout in the final seconds when Alex Krom got called for an illegal head scissors in a scramble that also had title implications (Krom would have had Primus in the final had he not given up back points on an ill-fated roll attempt late in the third period of his quarter to go from up 3-2 to losing 5-3– and I think most longtime Easton fans would tell you, if they could go back and give one former Red Rover a state title, it’s Alex Krom, just a heartbreaking tournament), and suffered the massive upset of 2x returning finalist Seth Ciasulli (who was undefeated in his career against state champ Steve Bell) losing to Kyle Fluke in the first round – who he then pinned on the backside. They had double the medals of Connellsville and CRS (6 to 3), but also was an “everything kind of goes wrong” tournament for the Red Rovers – who beat Great Bridge in a dual, the Cyler Sanderson Wasatch team at Reno, set a Manheim record with eight champions, and took six bouts from Blair in a dual. Really good team that ended the year without either of the two big postseason championships.

This is awesome. Thanks for the memories wrestling back then.

 

[mvattivo]

I used to read your rankings all the time and I remember you as a staple of the good old days on the D11 and WrestlingReport forums - I’m sure we’ve bantered and argued. I think in 2005 we put your picks in with our states pool we ran at Easton to see how everybody measured up against you.

Awesome! Coach Rohn used to actually get me tickets for the sold out duals. I was introduced to him by Denny Liberto/Billy Haydt's mom, who knew me from that District 11 board. Up to a few years ago, I used to fill out those brackets completely for AA & AAA for PAWrestling's contest, but, I don't really have the time anymore (plus they've changed the contests, so, you really don't need to fill them out completely). Used to sit there between sessions and compare the results to my pre-filled out brackets. I was nuts back then, but, it was a lot of fun!

I'm blanking on the guys name who ran the D11 forum, but, a friend of mine and I went to a bar in Northamption during a break in a tournament (can't remember the tournament or year), and we had a great time talking wrestling over some adult beverages.

 

[oldcougar65]

What are you, RoverNation? the official Easton historian?
I can add to your history a bit. I used to go up there ever December to see what they called, I think, The Final Four or something like that. They'd bring in teams from Oklahoma or Oregon (I liked that Oregon team) to compete with Easton and Blair. How'd you like to fly all the way across the country to take two butt beatings?
I'd go up with a friend or two, and we used to take bets as to how fast the Easton crowd started calling "STALLING!!!" Usually it was about the time of the coin flip.

 

[RoverNation05]

Awesome! Coach Rohn used to actually get me tickets for the sold out duals. I was introduced to him by Denny Liberto/Billy Haydt's mom, who knew me from that District 11 board. Up to a few years ago, I used to fill out those brackets completely for AA & AAA for PAWrestling's contest, but, I don't really have the time anymore (plus they've changed the contests, so, you really don't need to fill them out completely). Used to sit there between sessions and compare the results to my pre-filled out brackets. I was nuts back then, but, it was a lot of fun!

I'm blanking on the guys name who ran the D11 forum, but, a friend of mine and I went to a bar in Northamption during a break in a tournament (can't remember the tournament or year), and we had a great time talking wrestling over some adult beverages.

Ah, KKidsRock, an absolute lunatic presence on that message board.

Randy Maynard ran the website, just passed away over the summer, great guy and really built a great thing back in the pre-social media era. You have to use archive.org to get to the old D11 site now, but it has just a treasure trove of information. Like I said, I'm pitching in on a history project Lehigh Valley Live is doing, and it's really a goldmine for that 1998-2009ish era.

 

[RoverNation05]

What are you, RoverNation? the official Easton historian?
I can add to your history a bit. I used to go up there ever December to see what they called, I think, The Final Four or something like that. They'd bring in teams from Oklahoma or Oregon (I liked that Oregon team) to compete with Easton and Blair. How'd you like to fly all the way across the country to take two butt beatings?
I'd go up with a friend or two, and we used to take bets as to how fast the Easton crowd started calling "STALLING!!!" Usually it was about the time of the coin flip.

Official, no, I'm not Jack Logic. But I've worked with the Hall of Fame committee, I lived through a lot of it, and am pretty good at looking up what I don't remember (the old Easton Wrestling and D11 sites are amazing if you get an archive of them, pa-wrestling is incredible for brackets, etc.), which helps supplement what I do know and jog memories. And I've got old docs from Hall of Fame, Lehigh Valley Wrestling History, and other stuff I've looked up and contributed to that I can go to in a pinch.

The Final Four was always my favorite event of the year. It started as the Elite Duals, which they used to host at Lafayette, which was basically an excuse to get Walsh Jesuit to come wrestle Easton and Nazareth in 1996. There were various iterations of it that brought in a bunch of teams - St. Ed's, Blair, Walsh always were pretty consistent participants. It morphed into the NHSCA Final Four in 2002. The first Final Four was Blair, Easton, Solon (OH) with Deonte Penn, and some school from New Jersey (don't have it in front of me). Not a great field - Easton and St. Ed's actually dualed separtely that year - but it was a chance to get Easton/Blair when they were #1 and #2 in the country that year. Easton took the first six matches, then Dan Brown lost to Ryan Davis in OT, then Blair's run of Mark Perry, Zack Esposito, Hudson Taylor, Matt Palmer, and Kurt Backes erased the deficit and then some.

The Final Four really got going in 2003, when it was Great Bridge (VA) who was at the height of their powers, Edmond North (OK) but the year after Johny Hendricks and Teyon Ware graduated, Easton, and Blair. I mostly remember that for Mike Rogers hammering future AA Chris Brown, but Great Bridge beat Easton in the dual. The best field was 2004, with St. Paris Graham, Apple Valley, Blair, and Easton - like I said in the other post, Easton beat Graham and Apple Valley in the first two sessions, both incredible duals. The big hero was Alex Krom, who beat Cameron Doggett who was either 2 or 3 in the country at the time and then Richard Fessler from AV, who was a two or three time Minnesota state champ, who was getting beat handily by Krom and tried to punch him and got DQ'd in the last 30 seconds. Seth Ciasulli also beat Charlie Falck in the same dual to end some super long winning streak. That might be the only single day in school history that Apple Valley went 0-3.

The 2005 Final Four was in a massive snowstorm where they had to compress the whole event. Rio Rancho (NM) flew out for it when they were ranked #6 by AWN and were on some huge in-state winning streak, Great Bridge came back, this time ranked #2 nationally after really good Beast and Ironman showings, and then Easton and Blair. Easton put it on Rio Rancho pretty good in the opening session, then came back immediately and beat Great Bridge, Ciasulli beating the younger Frishkorn kicked that one off. They moved the Easton-Blair dual up from being a stand alone night match to like 1 PM to beat the snow, which Easton fans mostly remember for Alex Krom beating then national #1 Adam Frey in just an incredible 10-7 match, where Krom put him on his back in the second period, then when he was up 8-7, hit a double to ice it and rode him out. That was also the Mario Mason coming out party as he was a freshman and beat Frishkorn and the older Oliver brother in two of his first varsity matches.

Great Bridge came back the next year, and Bishop Lynch (TX) came up with the Silvers and Ashmores. I think Russ Souders beat Ben Ashmore in the standard huge Final 4 upset for the Red Rovers. Hermiston, Oregon came in 2007 in an expanded field with Bishop Lynch, Easotn, and Nazareth. I think there was one more final four in 2008, but Blair was really pulling away from Easton at that point and the event made less sense from a competitive perspective. I'd love for the good guys to get back to that level and put stuff like that on their schedule.

 

[oldcougar65]

One year going up to the Final Four, we crossed the river and went to see Blair Academy. I remember being impressed because they had their own golf course. Other than that, not so much.

 

[RoverNation05]

One year going up to the Final Four, we crossed the river and went to see Blair Academy. I remember being impressed because they had their own golf course. Other than that, not so much.

It’s just a tiny little boarding school. Their practice room is cool, duals in their gym are kind of eh.

It’s so close to the Lehigh Valley that’s it’s always been kind of surprising that more kids from the Valley haven’t gone there. Mark Lieberman back in the 70s, obviously Santoro and Weaver did PG years there. But outside of Mike Madera from Nazareth, I can’t remember anyone in the last 25 years or so. Despite the Jordan Oliver rumors, that he would incite by wearing Blair stuff to the Lions Club Classic just to see the forums burn down.

 

[RoverNation05]

What are you, RoverNation? the official Easton historian?
I can add to your history a bit. I used to go up there ever December to see what they called, I think, The Final Four or something like that. They'd bring in teams from Oklahoma or Oregon (I liked that Oregon team) to compete with Easton and Blair. How'd you like to fly all the way across the country to take two butt beatings?
I'd go up with a friend or two, and we used to take bets as to how fast the Easton crowd started calling "STALLING!!!" Usually it was about the time of the coin flip.

The other thing from the Final Four - Brandon (FL) had a standing invitation for years. Easton really wanted to be the team that broke the streak - they used to schedule teams to break long winning streaks, the team from Alabama that came up for Elite Duals in the 90s and Caesar Rodney came up to get a 100 something dual streak snapped in 2005 are the two I remember.

Anyway, Brandon always got invited and always turned it down. In 2005 they initially accepted and backed out, that’s why Rio Rancho ended up getting invited. In turn, Brandon invited Easton down in 05 for what was initially pitched as a dual tournament there. Then in the summer it became an individual tournament. Easton was pissed. Brandon ended up winning the tournament by like four points, super close, lots of match ups between the schools. That was probably Brandon’s best team (Gomez, Craig, older Grajales all as seniors) their studs were definitely better and they were probably favored, but would have loved to match up all 14.

It’s also insane that Easton went to Tampa, Florida and Reno within weeks of each other on a public school high school schedule.

 

[District four]

My screen name betrays my biases on this topic, but this conversation is very near and dear to my heart in one of the most exciting and fun eras of wrestling I’ve ever been around and I’m here to set the record straight on early 2000s District 11 wrestling, which my alma mater played an outsized role and I'd argue wasn't just a second fiddle to the '03 and '04 Northampton teams when considering all time greats.

• Northampton in 2003 and 2004 has to take a huge hit historically because they could not advance out of their district either year in the team portion of the tournament. Despite all of those state champs and medalists, they couldn’t beat little old Easton (laughs).
• In all seriousness, I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the country and world cover wrestling and have been in the building for some amazing high school events, the regular season/district dual matches between Easton and Northampton those two seasons are the best and most exciting I’ve been to (Blair’s first trip to Graham, the year of the Felipe Martinez cement mixer, comes in a close second). Incredibly high stakes (win and you probably win a state title, lose you go home) teams with tons of familiarly and year(s) long narrative build up, and a sold out crowd in a 4,000 seat gym. In 2003, Northampton beat Easton 31-29 in the second to last dual of the season the Saturday before District Duals – a dual that had to be moved to Liberty to accommodate the crowd (all four matches were held at Liberty's Memorial Gymnasium). A week later, Easton dropped the first bout of the night, then ripped off eight straight wins, highlighted by Brad Gentzle beating John Paukovitz 7-5 at 119, seven days after Paukovitz teched Gentzle in the dual, and Joey Ecklof dropped to 130 and lost to Bryan Hart, in the match that I think solidified Joey going up to 135 for the postseason, where he won a state title (Joey struggled at 130 that year with Hart who Donnie Jones beat 3-2 in quarters and Jay Morrison from Whitehall, who took 3rd) which totally flipped the tables of the team score. Easton won that dual 34-23 and went onto blast the field at state duals. On the individual side, Northampton won districts, Easton actually won regionals, and obviously Northampton’s four champs won them the state tournament (they medaled five), with Easton finishing in 2nd, medaled 7, and finished 22.5 points in front of third. During the season they won Reno, beat Edmond North (OK) in a dual, and took six matches from Blair. That Easton team was no slouch, despite losing potential state finalist Matt Lear to a broken ankle in December (third place the year before at 152 and was blitzing the field at Reno when his season ended).
• In 2004, the Easton-Northampton dual was the final match of the regular season, so they met again on back-to-back Saturday nights. In the regular season dual, Northampton won the flip, which let them control the matchup of arch rivals Billy Haydt and Sean Richmond at 160 (third and fourth at the state that year, one season after going 4th and 5th) – they bumped Haydt to 171 away from Richmond, and Northampton won the dual 31-30. Seven days later, Easton got OT wins at 103 and 112 (with Josh Oliver riding out Steve Mytych in a battle of the state’s 2nd and 4th place finishers that year), in the second and third bouts of the night, and got the Haydt-Richmond matchup they wanted to flip a result in the middle (both wrestlers went up to 171). That match went 1-1 in regulation, scoreless in OT, and Richmond took bottom in OTRO. Sean tells the story better than I do, but Richmond locked up a Peterson roll and put Haydt on his back, but the way Richmond landed is he came up facing the Easton crowd, and he got to sit and hold Haydt on his back while the points were awarded and watch that entire side of the gym blow up as the ref signaled reversal and he won. Then with Easton leading 26-22 going into 215, Marcus Millen beat Matt Snyder to clinch it. Once again, Easton won state duals rather handily. Easton probably lost the state tournament at regionals that year, losing two OT matches in the 3rd/4th bout at 103 and 215, plus another 3-2 match at 189 to “only” send six instead of nine to states, while Northampton went 3-0 in third place bouts to go from 8 to 11 in the dance, and of course all 11 medaled in one of the great state tournament weekends ever. That Easton team also had one of the great dual days ever, beating St. Paris Graham and Apple Valley within two hours of each other at the NHSCA Final Four.
• Northampton beat Easton at District Duals in 1999 and 2000 – in 1999, it was in D11 semis, and 200 is the year Northampton set the points record at individual states (but with only Ryan McCallum winning a title). But the rivalry was not back and forth in the postseason. In 2001 and 2002, Easton beat Northampton in both the regular season and D11 duals, the only splits of that era were 2003 and 2004, with Easton winning the two that counted. In fact, after 2000, Northampton did not beat Easton again at District Duals until the consolation final in 2022.
• Now coming to Northampton’s defense a little – Haines and Oplinger had very boring state finals, yes. Did I complain about them being just freakishly strong and stalling, also yes. But Josh’s semi against Phil Davis was also a full display of his skillset, he was a great chain wrestler once he got in exchanges, and was incredible in short offense. That’s one of those matches that really missed it’s era – if the entire tournament was streamed or televised like it is now (obviously not realistic with 2003 technology), and people saw that 9-7 barnburner between two elite guys rather than the 2-0 snoozer he won in finals, I think he gets remembered differently. He also had a pretty long kill list – Patrick Bond twice, Phil Davis, Josh Arnone, Luke Lofthouse, James Yonushonis. Haines blew a disc out in his back out during his redshirt year and then tore his ACL when he came back and never was healthy enough to put it together in college. Similarly with Oplinger, it feels like the match everybody remembers of his is the pulling the singlet point in OT against LoPiccollo in 2003, but he also posted a state tourney win over Phil Davis (in 2002 when he went to finals at 189 as a sophomore), and his senior year he kind of dominated future NFL linebacker Scott McKillop on his feet. Oplinger was kind of a tweener in college – he’d actually be a better fit for heavyweight now as like a 230-240 pound guy rather than cutting down to 197 like he did at the time, but even still was a blood-round finisher. I’m working on a project now with Lehigh Valley Live on this era of wrestling, so some of this is recall and some of this is working off of research I’ve done relatively recently, my memory isn’t THAT good.
• Jeff Ecklof was the Kellen Russell of early 2000s Pennsylvania wrestling – he had so many tools in his toolkit and was so talented, and every so often decided to use them, which made him so frustrating to watch as an opposing fan. He was so hard to score on, so deadly in short offense, so explosive when he pulled the trigger. And for as slow as his style could be sometimes, he was incredibly brash and a major personality off the mat. And his high school wins list is great – Mark Perry twice, Brandon Becker, Jarrod King, Dave Erwin, Matt Ciasulli. He was also good enough to All American as a true freshman for Oklahoma, with wins over Travis Paulson and Brian Stith at NCAAs – then never wrestled again in college.
• Which brings me to the 2002 season you’re talking about – Matt Ciasulli from Easton vaulted up to #1 in the country at 125 when he beat Darrell Vazquez out in the Reno final – 15-5 was the final score, and whoever had the account here was correct, he just threw in double boots and rode the snot out of Vazquez, turned him a bunch, etc. Ecklof was at 130 that year, and both had won state titles in 2001 (the aforementioned Ecklof-Baglio stalling match, while Ciasulli was OW at states after shutting out the field). Ciasulli was the best of the Red Hawk guys, which was run by his dad at the time, and it’s actually uncanny how much watching Nate Desmond now is like watching Matt 20 years ago, same style, same strengths, Nate is better and more varied on his feet, not quite the leg rider Matt was. Anyway, Ecklof told Nick Fiero of the Express-Times in an interview after that Ciasulli-Vazquez match that he was going to cut down to 125 for Easton and beat Ciasulli. The 2002 Easton-Northampton match was at Easton, and the most palpable pre-match buzz I remember in a gym was walking in and seeing Ecklof and Ciasulli across from each other on the bout board at 125 that night. He actually did it. Ecklof then ripped a cement mixer for 4 points in the first minute of the match, then just did not engage the remaining five minuets, and hung on and won 4-3.
• Easton was way better than Northampton in 2002 and won that dual and District Duals handily, and finished #2 in the country behind Blair, and went onto roll the field at State Duals. (I think 2002 is the best Easton dual team they’ve ever had – I think @smalls103 and I have had this conversation off air about them vs. 1996 and I’d love to do it for a very small audience). They had two big postseason injuries that kept their states point-total down (lost very likely medalists at 130, Bryan Hart and 189, Marcus Millen, plus dropped three 3rd/4th place matches at regionals all to state medalists and still put up triple digit points at states). I think that Easton team set the Reno record with 245 points and ten medalists, plus beat St. Ed’s in a dual. Not quite a super team at the next level in terms of Jordan Oliver type kids, but super deep – they had one All American (Alex Krom), five DI NCAA qualifiers (Krom, Chad Sportelli, Matt Ciasulli, Bryan Hart, Sean Richmond), plus one more DI wrestler (Bryan Rizzo – Coleman Scott’s last PA loss in high school), two Division II All Americans (Mike Rogers and Jason Groller), and an FBS football player (Marcus Millen). That list doesn’t include state bronze medalist Matt Lear, who lost in OTRO to Nathan Galloway in quarters and went into the Marines rather than pursue college wrestling after high school or state finalist Dan Brown, who got into some prestigious architecture program and passed on D1 wrestling offers.
• I’ve often made the argument that Joey Ecklof is the worst three-time state champion in Pennsylvania history. Which makes him…a three-time state champion. Hell of a nice guy, the Donnie Jones match was such an all-timer and I think the absolute best he ever wrestled in his life. He took a lot of losses for how decorated his career is (he’s sub .500 in his career against wrestlers from Whitehall, for instance, which is an incredibly weird state) and particularly his first state title was “catch fire on weekend in Hershey” rather than being the dominant guy in the weight that year. Going into the postseason in 2005, there was lots of chatter than he wasn’t going to win anywhere – he’d already lost to Tim McGoldrick, who was at 145 along with Joe Caramanica, who had the better of Ecklof when they were both at 130 in 2003 – and that would have been just to get out of D11, he had Donnie Jones at 152, and there was a lot of “no way he beats Austin Carter” if he goes up to 160. Then in the state tournament, Jones was dominating while Ecklof scraped by, though to be fair, Ecklof had 2006 state champ Brent Fiorito in his semi while Jones teched Ryan Uber (?) and the contrast in those matches back-to-back in the morning is where the most stark “Jones is going to kill him” talk seemed to start. Then of course, the match happened, Ecklof scored on the quick slide by, then the crazy 360 takedown off of Jones’s ankle pick, and he just rode the wave.
• In terms of Northampon controlling states in the early 2000s, here are the Easton/Northampton finishes from 2000-2004

2000: Northampton 1st, 137.5 / Easton 2nd, 90.5 / third place 57
2001: Easton 1st 112 / Northampton 3rd 61.5
2002: Easton 1st 100 / Northampton 4th 59
2003: Northampton 1st 98 / Easton 2nd 80.5 / third place 58
2004: Northampton 1st 132.5 / Easton 2nd 83.5 / third place 68
Easton then went 3rd, 8th, 3rd, 4th, 13th, while Northampton fell to 15th, 37th, 8th, 5th, 6th to close out the decade. In the 1990s, Northampton won in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998, while Easton win in 1996 and 1997. Nazareth didn't actually win a state title until taking the state tournament in 2006, then state duals in 2007. They were eternal bridesmaids in the 1990s while Easton and Northampton were trading titles. That Easton 2001 team had two champs and seven medalists for probably their best state tournament ever, but didn't quite have the full season the 2002 team had a year later, as they lost to St. Ed's, only took 3rd at Reno, were less close against Blair, etc. But they had more fall their way in the postseason.

• The 2005 state tournament finish was insane, with Connellsville and Council Rock South tying at 68 points, with Easton finishing with 67. Easton had a nine-point lead headed into finals, but lost their only chance to stretch the lead at 103 when Jordan Oliver lost to Matt Kyler. Council Rock South cut Easton’s lead to five despite returning state champ Rick Rappo getting upset at 112, because his brother Mike stunned Brad Pataky at 119 when Pataky was #1 in the country. Connellsville got an OT win by Steve Bell at 125 to also pull within five of the Red Rovers, then they vaulted ahead of Easton when Ashtin Primus pinned in the finals at 135. Council Rock South shot ahead of Easton and into a tie with Connesllsville with an Austin Carter pin in the finals at 160 – talk about playing H-O-R-S-E in the last round!
• One the Easton side of that tournament, they had a team point deducted after the consolation final at 130 when Josh Oliver lost then threw his headgear – that point stays on and it was a three-way tie for the title (Josh also got pinned by Steve Bell in the State Dual final when he slid off of Bell trying to leg ride out the third period clinging to a 6-5 lead, then gave up thinking time was up, and it went from a reversal to a fall with :01 left on the clock, not the finest postseason for the elder Oliver). Easton also dropped a third-place bout in the final seconds when Alex Krom got called for an illegal head scissors in a scramble that also had title implications (Krom would have had Primus in the final had he not given up back points on an ill-fated roll attempt late in the third period of his quarter to go from up 3-2 to losing 5-3– and I think most longtime Easton fans would tell you, if they could go back and give one former Red Rover a state title, it’s Alex Krom, just a heartbreaking tournament), and suffered the massive upset of 2x returning finalist Seth Ciasulli (who was undefeated in his career against state champ Steve Bell) losing to Kyle Fluke in the first round – who he then pinned on the backside. They had double the medals of Connellsville and CRS (6 to 3), but also was an “everything kind of goes wrong” tournament for the Red Rovers – who beat Great Bridge in a dual, the Cyler Sanderson Wasatch team at Reno, set a Manheim record with eight champions, and took six bouts from Blair in a dual. Really good team that ended the year without either of the two big postseason championships.

WTF

 

[District four]

Seriously my thumb cramped up twice trying to scroll through that thread. For ****s sake break it up a little

 

[mcpat]

My screen name betrays my biases on this topic, but this conversation is very near and dear to my heart in one of the most exciting and fun eras of wrestling I’ve ever been around and I’m here to set the record straight on early 2000s District 11 wrestling, which my alma mater played an outsized role and I'd argue wasn't just a second fiddle to the '03 and '04 Northampton teams when considering all time greats.

• Northampton in 2003 and 2004 has to take a huge hit historically because they could not advance out of their district either year in the team portion of the tournament. Despite all of those state champs and medalists, they couldn’t beat little old Easton (laughs).
• In all seriousness, I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the country and world cover wrestling and have been in the building for some amazing high school events, the regular season/district dual matches between Easton and Northampton those two seasons are the best and most exciting I’ve been to (Blair’s first trip to Graham, the year of the Felipe Martinez cement mixer, comes in a close second). Incredibly high stakes (win and you probably win a state title, lose you go home) teams with tons of familiarly and year(s) long narrative build up, and a sold out crowd in a 4,000 seat gym. In 2003, Northampton beat Easton 31-29 in the second to last dual of the season the Saturday before District Duals – a dual that had to be moved to Liberty to accommodate the crowd (all four matches were held at Liberty's Memorial Gymnasium). A week later, Easton dropped the first bout of the night, then ripped off eight straight wins, highlighted by Brad Gentzle beating John Paukovitz 7-5 at 119, seven days after Paukovitz teched Gentzle in the dual, and Joey Ecklof dropped to 130 and lost to Bryan Hart, in the match that I think solidified Joey going up to 135 for the postseason, where he won a state title (Joey struggled at 130 that year with Hart who Donnie Jones beat 3-2 in quarters and Jay Morrison from Whitehall, who took 3rd) which totally flipped the tables of the team score. Easton won that dual 34-23 and went onto blast the field at state duals. On the individual side, Northampton won districts, Easton actually won regionals, and obviously Northampton’s four champs won them the state tournament (they medaled five), with Easton finishing in 2nd, medaled 7, and finished 22.5 points in front of third. During the season they won Reno, beat Edmond North (OK) in a dual, and took six matches from Blair. That Easton team was no slouch, despite losing potential state finalist Matt Lear to a broken ankle in December (third place the year before at 152 and was blitzing the field at Reno when his season ended).
• In 2004, the Easton-Northampton dual was the final match of the regular season, so they met again on back-to-back Saturday nights. In the regular season dual, Northampton won the flip, which let them control the matchup of arch rivals Billy Haydt and Sean Richmond at 160 (third and fourth at the state that year, one season after going 4th and 5th) – they bumped Haydt to 171 away from Richmond, and Northampton won the dual 31-30. Seven days later, Easton got OT wins at 103 and 112 (with Josh Oliver riding out Steve Mytych in a battle of the state’s 2nd and 4th place finishers that year), in the second and third bouts of the night, and got the Haydt-Richmond matchup they wanted to flip a result in the middle (both wrestlers went up to 171). That match went 1-1 in regulation, scoreless in OT, and Richmond took bottom in OTRO. Sean tells the story better than I do, but Richmond locked up a Peterson roll and put Haydt on his back, but the way Richmond landed is he came up facing the Easton crowd, and he got to sit and hold Haydt on his back while the points were awarded and watch that entire side of the gym blow up as the ref signaled reversal and he won. Then with Easton leading 26-22 going into 215, Marcus Millen beat Matt Snyder to clinch it. Once again, Easton won state duals rather handily. Easton probably lost the state tournament at regionals that year, losing two OT matches in the 3rd/4th bout at 103 and 215, plus another 3-2 match at 189 to “only” send six instead of nine to states, while Northampton went 3-0 in third place bouts to go from 8 to 11 in the dance, and of course all 11 medaled in one of the great state tournament weekends ever. That Easton team also had one of the great dual days ever, beating St. Paris Graham and Apple Valley within two hours of each other at the NHSCA Final Four.
• Northampton beat Easton at District Duals in 1999 and 2000 – in 1999, it was in D11 semis, and 200 is the year Northampton set the points record at individual states (but with only Ryan McCallum winning a title). But the rivalry was not back and forth in the postseason. In 2001 and 2002, Easton beat Northampton in both the regular season and D11 duals, the only splits of that era were 2003 and 2004, with Easton winning the two that counted. In fact, after 2000, Northampton did not beat Easton again at District Duals until the consolation final in 2022.
• Now coming to Northampton’s defense a little – Haines and Oplinger had very boring state finals, yes. Did I complain about them being just freakishly strong and stalling, also yes. But Josh’s semi against Phil Davis was also a full display of his skillset, he was a great chain wrestler once he got in exchanges, and was incredible in short offense. That’s one of those matches that really missed it’s era – if the entire tournament was streamed or televised like it is now (obviously not realistic with 2003 technology), and people saw that 9-7 barnburner between two elite guys rather than the 2-0 snoozer he won in finals, I think he gets remembered differently. He also had a pretty long kill list – Patrick Bond twice, Phil Davis, Josh Arnone, Luke Lofthouse, James Yonushonis. Haines blew a disc out in his back out during his redshirt year and then tore his ACL when he came back and never was healthy enough to put it together in college. Similarly with Oplinger, it feels like the match everybody remembers of his is the pulling the singlet point in OT against LoPiccollo in 2003, but he also posted a state tourney win over Phil Davis (in 2002 when he went to finals at 189 as a sophomore), and his senior year he kind of dominated future NFL linebacker Scott McKillop on his feet. Oplinger was kind of a tweener in college – he’d actually be a better fit for heavyweight now as like a 230-240 pound guy rather than cutting down to 197 like he did at the time, but even still was a blood-round finisher. I’m working on a project now with Lehigh Valley Live on this era of wrestling, so some of this is recall and some of this is working off of research I’ve done relatively recently, my memory isn’t THAT good.
• Jeff Ecklof was the Kellen Russell of early 2000s Pennsylvania wrestling – he had so many tools in his toolkit and was so talented, and every so often decided to use them, which made him so frustrating to watch as an opposing fan. He was so hard to score on, so deadly in short offense, so explosive when he pulled the trigger. And for as slow as his style could be sometimes, he was incredibly brash and a major personality off the mat. And his high school wins list is great – Mark Perry twice, Brandon Becker, Jarrod King, Dave Erwin, Matt Ciasulli. He was also good enough to All American as a true freshman for Oklahoma, with wins over Travis Paulson and Brian Stith at NCAAs – then never wrestled again in college.
• Which brings me to the 2002 season you’re talking about – Matt Ciasulli from Easton vaulted up to #1 in the country at 125 when he beat Darrell Vazquez out in the Reno final – 15-5 was the final score, and whoever had the account here was correct, he just threw in double boots and rode the snot out of Vazquez, turned him a bunch, etc. Ecklof was at 130 that year, and both had won state titles in 2001 (the aforementioned Ecklof-Baglio stalling match, while Ciasulli was OW at states after shutting out the field). Ciasulli was the best of the Red Hawk guys, which was run by his dad at the time, and it’s actually uncanny how much watching Nate Desmond now is like watching Matt 20 years ago, same style, same strengths, Nate is better and more varied on his feet, not quite the leg rider Matt was. Anyway, Ecklof told Nick Fiero of the Express-Times in an interview after that Ciasulli-Vazquez match that he was going to cut down to 125 for Easton and beat Ciasulli. The 2002 Easton-Northampton match was at Easton, and the most palpable pre-match buzz I remember in a gym was walking in and seeing Ecklof and Ciasulli across from each other on the bout board at 125 that night. He actually did it. Ecklof then ripped a cement mixer for 4 points in the first minute of the match, then just did not engage the remaining five minuets, and hung on and won 4-3.
• Easton was way better than Northampton in 2002 and won that dual and District Duals handily, and finished #2 in the country behind Blair, and went onto roll the field at State Duals. (I think 2002 is the best Easton dual team they’ve ever had – I think @smalls103 and I have had this conversation off air about them vs. 1996 and I’d love to do it for a very small audience). They had two big postseason injuries that kept their states point-total down (lost very likely medalists at 130, Bryan Hart and 189, Marcus Millen, plus dropped three 3rd/4th place matches at regionals all to state medalists and still put up triple digit points at states). I think that Easton team set the Reno record with 245 points and ten medalists, plus beat St. Ed’s in a dual. Not quite a super team at the next level in terms of Jordan Oliver type kids, but super deep – they had one All American (Alex Krom), five DI NCAA qualifiers (Krom, Chad Sportelli, Matt Ciasulli, Bryan Hart, Sean Richmond), plus one more DI wrestler (Bryan Rizzo – Coleman Scott’s last PA loss in high school), two Division II All Americans (Mike Rogers and Jason Groller), and an FBS football player (Marcus Millen). That list doesn’t include state bronze medalist Matt Lear, who lost in OTRO to Nathan Galloway in quarters and went into the Marines rather than pursue college wrestling after high school or state finalist Dan Brown, who got into some prestigious architecture program and passed on D1 wrestling offers.
• I’ve often made the argument that Joey Ecklof is the worst three-time state champion in Pennsylvania history. Which makes him…a three-time state champion. Hell of a nice guy, the Donnie Jones match was such an all-timer and I think the absolute best he ever wrestled in his life. He took a lot of losses for how decorated his career is (he’s sub .500 in his career against wrestlers from Whitehall, for instance, which is an incredibly weird state) and particularly his first state title was “catch fire on weekend in Hershey” rather than being the dominant guy in the weight that year. Going into the postseason in 2005, there was lots of chatter than he wasn’t going to win anywhere – he’d already lost to Tim McGoldrick, who was at 145 along with Joe Caramanica, who had the better of Ecklof when they were both at 130 in 2003 – and that would have been just to get out of D11, he had Donnie Jones at 152, and there was a lot of “no way he beats Austin Carter” if he goes up to 160. Then in the state tournament, Jones was dominating while Ecklof scraped by, though to be fair, Ecklof had 2006 state champ Brent Fiorito in his semi while Jones teched Ryan Uber (?) and the contrast in those matches back-to-back in the morning is where the most stark “Jones is going to kill him” talk seemed to start. Then of course, the match happened, Ecklof scored on the quick slide by, then the crazy 360 takedown off of Jones’s ankle pick, and he just rode the wave.
• In terms of Northampon controlling states in the early 2000s, here are the Easton/Northampton finishes from 2000-2004

2000: Northampton 1st, 137.5 / Easton 2nd, 90.5 / third place 57
2001: Easton 1st 112 / Northampton 3rd 61.5
2002: Easton 1st 100 / Northampton 4th 59
2003: Northampton 1st 98 / Easton 2nd 80.5 / third place 58
2004: Northampton 1st 132.5 / Easton 2nd 83.5 / third place 68
Easton then went 3rd, 8th, 3rd, 4th, 13th, while Northampton fell to 15th, 37th, 8th, 5th, 6th to close out the decade. In the 1990s, Northampton won in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998, while Easton win in 1996 and 1997. Nazareth didn't actually win a state title until taking the state tournament in 2006, then state duals in 2007. They were eternal bridesmaids in the 1990s while Easton and Northampton were trading titles. That Easton 2001 team had two champs and seven medalists for probably their best state tournament ever, but didn't quite have the full season the 2002 team had a year later, as they lost to St. Ed's, only took 3rd at Reno, were less close against Blair, etc. But they had more fall their way in the postseason.

• The 2005 state tournament finish was insane, with Connellsville and Council Rock South tying at 68 points, with Easton finishing with 67. Easton had a nine-point lead headed into finals, but lost their only chance to stretch the lead at 103 when Jordan Oliver lost to Matt Kyler. Council Rock South cut Easton’s lead to five despite returning state champ Rick Rappo getting upset at 112, because his brother Mike stunned Brad Pataky at 119 when Pataky was #1 in the country. Connellsville got an OT win by Steve Bell at 125 to also pull within five of the Red Rovers, then they vaulted ahead of Easton when Ashtin Primus pinned in the finals at 135. Council Rock South shot ahead of Easton and into a tie with Connesllsville with an Austin Carter pin in the finals at 160 – talk about playing H-O-R-S-E in the last round!
• One the Easton side of that tournament, they had a team point deducted after the consolation final at 130 when Josh Oliver lost then threw his headgear – that point stays on and it was a three-way tie for the title (Josh also got pinned by Steve Bell in the State Dual final when he slid off of Bell trying to leg ride out the third period clinging to a 6-5 lead, then gave up thinking time was up, and it went from a reversal to a fall with :01 left on the clock, not the finest postseason for the elder Oliver). Easton also dropped a third-place bout in the final seconds when Alex Krom got called for an illegal head scissors in a scramble that also had title implications (Krom would have had Primus in the final had he not given up back points on an ill-fated roll attempt late in the third period of his quarter to go from up 3-2 to losing 5-3– and I think most longtime Easton fans would tell you, if they could go back and give one former Red Rover a state title, it’s Alex Krom, just a heartbreaking tournament), and suffered the massive upset of 2x returning finalist Seth Ciasulli (who was undefeated in his career against state champ Steve Bell) losing to Kyle Fluke in the first round – who he then pinned on the backside. They had double the medals of Connellsville and CRS (6 to 3), but also was an “everything kind of goes wrong” tournament for the Red Rovers – who beat Great Bridge in a dual, the Cyler Sanderson Wasatch team at Reno, set a Manheim record with eight champions, and took six bouts from Blair in a dual. Really good team that ended the year without either of the two big postseason championships.

Interesting, but could you please go into further detail?

 

[Random4598375]

Interesting, but could you please go into further detail?

And please release it in audiobook form. LOL.