Tyrone senior Brayden Ewing and sophomore Kyle Scott both reached the podium at the PIAA AA Wrestling Championships for the first time in their high school careers.
Scott, already a 2x State qualifier, picked up 8th place over the weekend. He took 2nd at Districts, and 5th at Regionals and was looking for a podium spot.
Scott had a long way to go as he pulled a tough prelim draw against Saint Mary’s Andrew Wolfanger.
Scott wrestled hard and pulled away with a close 1-0 victory to move onto the round of 16.
Scott next faced Montgomery Caden Finck, the 4th seed of the tournament. Scott was down 2-1 going into the third and knew he could tally back, Finck escaped quickly to go up 3-1. With Scott on the hunt for a takedown to tie, Finck had too good of a defense and Scott fell via decision.
Scott fell to the Consi round of 8 #1 where he faced a familiar opponent, Owen Mcmullen from Bishop McCort.
Scott and McMullen faced each other three times before their meeting at States. All three matches were losses for Scott, all by 1-2 points.
Scott and Mcmullen had the same match as usual. Tied 1-1 going into the third, Scott had a stall call on him, and McMullen pushed the pace with a minute left. McMullen drove Scott out of bounce and the ref was bound to give Scott a stall call. With 16 seconds remaining, Scott knew he had to attempt a takedown. Scott shot with 14 seconds remaining and drove through to secure a takedown and finally beat his biggest opponent of the year.
In the blood round, Scott had a match he knew he could win.
“I had confidence after that match and knew I could beat the next kid in the blood,” Scott said.
Scott did just that as he rallied 11 points to win via a major decision to secure a place on the podium.
Unfortunately Scott lost his next match to Braedon Welsh 3-1 and fell to the 7th-place bout where he wrestled Finck again. Scott lost a close match to Finck but improved his offense during the match. Scott lost in sudden victory 3-1 to take 8th place.
Scott finished his season with a record of 41-9 and took 8th at States with two more years left to compete.
Braden Ewing had a similar journey in his state bracket. Ewing won his first match via 9-3 decision and moved onto the quarter-finals where he wrestled the 2nd-seeded Carson Neely.
Neely beat Ewing previously in the year at the Ultimate Warrior tournament. Neely reversed Ewing in the third to go up 2-0. Ewing fell to Neely via 3-0 decision. In the first match, Neely won by 7 points. Ewing stepped up his game and closed a big gap between them in the recent match.
Ewing dropped to the blood rounds where he had a tough match. His opponent, Landon Morehart of Montoursville was no pushover as he pinned his opponent in his match before. The first period was scoreless as usual with Heavyweight matches.
Morehart took down and Ewing rode him and kept Morehart flat for most of the 2 minutes. Ewing took the bottom, taking over 4 seconds for Ewing to reverse his opponent. Ewing up 2-0 and held onto the Victory line. Ewing won and guaranteed placement.
Ewing lost his next two matches both via decision, Ewing took 8th in the state and posted a 43-6 record on the 202302024 season.
He ended his career at 119-37 and was a three time state qualifier.
