Augustine takes starring role in 172-pound final
HERSHEY — He was named after a movie character in “The Godfather” who came to a grizzly end.
Luca Brasi should have never gone into that bar.
But Saturday night, it was Waynesburg Central senior Luca Augustine who brought an end to Trey Kibe’s scholastic wrestling career with a movie star ending: coming through in the end to make a winning play.
Augustine was credited with a takedown with 10 seconds remaining to win 3-2 over Kibe, of Mifflin County, in the 172-pound finals of the PIAA Class AAA Championships at the Giant Center.
Augustine became the Raiders’ third and final state champion for the tournament and 35th state champion in the program’s history.
And for 5:50 of that match, the ending was in doubt, which was exactly to the match plan for Augustine.
Kibe hit a headlock near the edge of the mat and Augustine slipped his head out of Kibe’s grasp and scored the winning point. Interestingly, Augustine broke his headgear earlier in the match and was using his teammate’s, Rocco Welsh, which was tighter and smother than the one he was wearing to start the match.
“I wasn’t expecting the headlock to come,” said Augustine. “He must not have wanted it to go to overtime because I was ready to go.
“I put on Rocco’s headgear so a big shoutout to him. I wouldn’t have slipped my head out of my headgear. But I would slip it out of Rocco’s. I like the feel of it. It’s a little tight but I have a big head.”
Kibe was coming off a 5-3 win over Augustine in the finals of the West Super Region in a match that Augustine was the aggressor.
“It was a completely different match,” said Augustine. “I kept going forward. Kibe has a very good defense and he feeds off that so I changed my strategy.”
Augustine ends his scholastic career with a 21-1 season record and 122-24 career mark.
“I tell my guys in the room that you are not going to wrestle Luca every day,” said Waynesburg head coach Joe Throckmorton. “So you better take advantage of it.”