Into the Hall: Connellsville wrestling
Connellsville wrestling was already established as one of the premier programs in the state by the time the 2004-05 season came along.
That team, under head coach Tom Dolde Jr. and led by state champions Ashtin Primus and Steve Bell, enhanced the Falcons’ legacy even further.
Connellsville became the first WPIAL team to win a PIAA team championship.
That Falcons team has earned a spot in the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
“It did give me a sense of pride,” Dolde said in reminiscing about the 2004-05 team’s accomplishments on Hall of Fame co-founder George Von Benko’s Sports Line Talk Show on WMBS Radio recently. “Definitely deserving. This team was special in so many ways.”
Connellsville followed up a WPIAL championship with wins over Nazareth, 35-19, in the PIAA Class AAA semifinals and four-time defending state champion Easton, 34-25, in the finals. The Falcons finished with a 28-3 dual-meet record.
Dolde’s father, the late Tom Dolde Sr., had built the Falcons into a power and Dolde Jr. kept the program at an elite level when he took over.
“It’s been going strong since the inception,” Dolde said in looking back. “The team started in like 1968-69, around there.”
Dolde recalled his days as a wrestler.
“The very first Junior Olympic Wrestling Team, that’s what it used to be called, I was actually on that very first team,” Dolde said. “It started up in the mountains at one of the elementary schools. We had a couple old mats delivered up to that elementary school and we used to practice in there at night. That was the very first inception of the Junior Olympic program. Then it just built from there.”
Dolde pointed out how the Connellsville program stayed true to its roots.
“You hire from within the program,” Dolde said. “One of our tenets we always coached by was hiring within the district, so every coach we ever had was a teacher in the district or somebody that came through the program and wanted to give back. That was one thing in building a sense of pride. It’s a hometown kind of thing.”
The concept went beyond wrestling said Dolde, who served a stint as the Falcons head football coach and was on the coaching staff for a number of years.
“My last year coaching football I think we had 14 coaches and every single one of the 14 was a teacher in the district,” Dolde said. “I think we had 92 kids on that football team.”
Wrestling, however, is different from football or any other sport, according to Dolde.
“It’s definitely a level of dedication that stresses most humans, most people,” Dolde said. “It’s just a level of commitment that takes a special kind of character. There’s a weight element to it that keeps you at a certain weight class. So when everyone is going out for pizza on Thursday night, you have to sacrifice that, and maybe miss that party. There’s a lot of training elements to it that definitely singles out a certain type of person.”
The 2004-05 squad had many such individuals.
“We had 55 kids on the roster,” said Dolde, who pointed out another unique feature agout the Falcons that season.
“The most amazing thing about this team from the inception of the team tournament in PIAA history, we’re the only team ever to not have a single transfer,” Dolde said. “It was homegrown. We made T-shirts that said “homegrown.” Bob Lombardi, the president of the PIAA, actually asked me for one of those T-shirts, which I gave him.
“Every team you see now in the top three or four, they all have transfers, even Connellsville has three or four transfers on that team that they have now. We’re the only team ever to win that championship that didn’t have a single transfer.”
Connellsville’s 2004-05 squad wasn’t expected to be such a dominant force.
“That’s the other amazing thing about the 2005 team, we probably graduated four starters from the previous team,” Dolde said. “Probably the most decorated wrestler in the history of Connellsville graduated the year before that team, Jarrod King, and there were three or four other students that graduated that made that previous team special.”
King, who went on to become Edinboro’s first NCAA national champion, was inducted into the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame in 2021.
“We had some ups and downs that were unbelievable really, and we just got better and better,” Dolde said in how the 2004-05 season progressed.
“I always tell students that a wrestling season’s different than most other seasons because it’s five months long. The best word I can describe it by is ‘grueling.’ It is a long, grueling season. I always tell kids and students and other coaches that going through a wrestling season is like flying one of those big 737 jets. It’s not like a fighter jet that does barrel rolls and turns on a dime. Flying one of those big, big jets is you make small, tiny corrections to get to your destination.
“That’s the best way to describe the 2005 wrestling team. We lost very early in the season to Kiski (28-26). We had some ups and downs. We had some tough things happen to us. We had a four-year starter that quit on us. And we just kept making those tiny, tiny corrections until we got to our destination.”
Connellsville’s path to win a second straight and sixth WPIAL title overall wasn’t easy.
“We wrestled Waynesburg in the semis. Was that a match,” Dolde said in recalling the Falcons’ 27-25 victory. “It went down to the very last bout. We didn’t know if we were going to win that match. When we beat them we made it to the finals and we avenged the loss against Kiski.”
The Falcons weren’t done yet.
“In the PIAA championships, probably the best match we wrestled all year was in the semifinals against a very tough Nazereth team,” Dolde said. “We beat the tar our of them. They had a three-time state champion on that team that we pinned. Ashtin Primus, who was a great wrestler that year, state champion for us, he actually pinned that kid (Tim Darling) in his individual match against Nazereth.”
The Falcons defeated Nazareth, 35-19.
“They were seeded ahead of us.” Dolde said. “They were picked to beat us.”
Connellsville reversed several key defeats from the year before.
“They had beaten us in the finals the previous year,” Dolde said. “Zach Snyder had an unbelievable win against a kid who had beaten him before. Josh Martin beat a kid that was a transfer from New Jersey that he lost to like five times.”
In that semifinal match, Sines lost a major decision at 160 but the Falcons got consecutive victories from Adam Knepper at 171 (5-2 decision), Jason Doppelheuer at 189 (13-4 major decision) and Joshua Brewer at 215 (4-3 decision) to go up 10-4.
Nazereth roared back to take a 14-10 advantage with three straight wins over Connellsville’s Melvin Warrick at 275 (4-1 decision), Tyler Nicholson at 103 (4-2 decision) and Kody Pujia at 112 (8-0 major decision).
The Falcons then reeled off five straight victories to surge to a 31-14 lead and seal the state title.
Jack Knepper (7-1) and Make Bavada (6-5) took decisions at 119 and 125, Bell won by fall (3:25) at 130 and Primus did the same (3:37 against Darling) at 135, and Snyder capped the run with a decision (6-0) at 140.
After Andy Snyder lost by technical fall at 145, Martin closed out the match with a major decision (16-5).
In the final against Easton, Connellsville’s got wins from Doppelheuer at 171 (8-3 decision), Alan Porter at 189 (3-2 decision), Warrick at 275 (fall at 1:44) and Pujia at 112 (12-5 decision), but still found itself down 25-15 with five bouts to go.
The Falcons won all five.
“Going into those last four bouts we knew we had a chance to win,” Dolde said. “I’ll never forget the very final bout, we couldn’t loss the match. Today a lot of teams when they’re going into the final few matches there’s a trend going on right now where you just forfeit your way out of the match.
“Me and my dad, we just absolutely hated that when we saw people do that. So we refused to do it. Going into the last match we had a kid named Buddy Sines who went up against a kid that was ranked ahead of him. The talk I had with him was, hey, don’t do anything crazy, keep your cool. He said you know what coach, I’m just going to go out and win. When he said that I said what a great attitude. So he went out and won that final bout. What a great experience it was for Connellsville wrestling.
Bell started the closing, five-bout winning streak with a win by fall (5:59) at 130. Primus then earned a major decision (17-5) at 135, Zach Snyder won by decision (7-3) at 140, Martin won by decision (4-2) at 145 and Sines’ upset win at 152 came via a 7-5 decision.
Dolde lauded a few of the team’s top wrestlers in addition to Primus.
“We had a kid named Steven Bell that was a senior that year,” Dolde said. “He won a state championship. He lost in the finals of the WPIAL to a kid from Plum who was really, really good. We faced that same kid in the (PIAA) finals. It went into overtime and he got a takedown in the first overtime period to win a state championship.
“We had a kid named Zach Snyder who was a captain on that team and he took (fourth) in the state that year. So we had two finalists … he could’ve easily been a third finalist on that team.
“We had great effort from some great kids on that team.”
Dolde expects several members of the 2004-05 squad to be present for the Hall of Fame induction.
“They kept in contact with one another,” Dolde said. “So we’re hoping to get a good turnout from that team.”
To purchase tickets for the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame luncheon/social or to register for the annual golf outing, both of which will take place on June 19 at Pleasant Valley Golf Club, contact Katie Propes by phone (724-460-9231) or email (katie.propes@bldr.com).