Mar 5, 2023 By The 2 min read

Waynesburg Central’s Mac Church won his third WPIAL/PIAA Southwest Regional Class AAA Individual Wrestling Championship Saturday at Canon-McMillan High School.

The top four wrestlers advance to the PIAA Championships this week.

Church won the 145-pound title with an 8-3 decision over West Allegheny’s Nico Taddy. Church’s other two district titles were in 2020 and 2022.

Teammate Rocco Welsh (39-0) was defeating Canon-McMillan’s Matthew Furman midway through the second period, 12-3, when Furman defaulted the 172-pound championship bout to give Welsh his second-straight title. Welsh was named the tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler.

Eli Makel gave the Raiders three WPIAL gold medalists after he won a 5-1 decision against Armstrong’s Connor Jacobs for the 215-pound title.

A fourth Waynesburg wrestling advanced to at title bout, but Brody Evans lost a 5-1 decision to Pine-Richland’s Vaughn Spencer at 189 pounds.

Connellsville’s Jacob Layton was one of five local wrestlers in the third-place consolation, but the only one to emerge victorious. Layton won the 121-pound bronze medal with a fall in 2:38 over Baldwin’s Owen Klodowski.

Connellsville’s Gabriel Ruggieri (133) and Lonzy Vielma (139), Waynesburg’s Nate Jones (152), and Ringgold’s Jake Conroy (189) finished fourth.

Waynesburg and Connellsville both had a wrestler win in the fifth-place consolation match, as well as drop a bout in the consolation bout.

The Raiders’ Ky Szewczyk placed fifth at 114 pounds and teammate Jake Stephenson was sixth at 160 pounds.

The Falcons’ Evan Petrovich finished fifth at 127 pounds and Ethan Ansell was the sixth-place finisher at 152 pounds.

Connellsville’s Tyler Gallis placed seventh at 285 pounds, while teammates Landon Lynn (107) and Chad Jesko (145) finished eighth.