FROM THE PRESS BOX: ATHENS' BRADLEY REACHES HIS GOAL ... THOUGHTS ON BURKHART AND COURTNEY (2022-03-18)
Athens senior Gavin Bradley has had one goal in mind since he stepped on the varsity wrestling mat as a freshman — win a state title.
On Saturday, that goal came to fruition with an exciting 4-2 win over Montoursville’s Branden Wentzel in the state finals.
With the win, Bradley became the eighth state champ in Athens program history, and only the second to win four PIAA medals.
He finished his career with a 152-19 record, with 12 of his loss coming in the postseason. His last loss during the regular season was on Dec. 12, 2019 — an 8-3 setback, up a weight class, against Troy’s Sheldon Seymour.
Seymour, a two-time PIAA champ who is currently wrestling at Lehigh University, dealt Bradley three of his six postseason losses during his freshman season. His other losses were to current Clarion wrestler Joey Fischer, current Penn State grappler Levi Haines, and Chestnut Ridge standout Kai Burkett.
As a sophomore, Bradley dropped a 5-4 decision to Muncy freshman Scott Johnson in the District 4 finals. Bradley avenged those losses with a 10-3 win in the Regional finals, and a 5-3 win in sudden-victory at States. (Johnson won the 126-pound title this year.)
He also lost to Clarion University commit Easton Toth and Burkett, a Division I recruit who would die tragically in a car accident the following summer.
As a junior, Bradley would beat Wyoming Area’s Jaden Pepe in the Regional finals, but drop close decisions to Pepe in the Super Regional and State finals. (Pepe won the 120-pound title this year.)
This year, Bradley lost to Wentzel, a former state champ, in District finals, but avenged those losses with wins in the Regional and State finals.
I’ve seen Bradley wrestle a hundred times, and his reaction to winning is always the same. There is no smile, no celebration. He simply gets his hand raised, shakes hands with his opponent and the opposing coaches, and returns to his corner for more coaching from Shawn Bradley and Jay White.
Even after his win in the state semifinals, Bradley followed his normal protocol, but when the final horn for the championship match sounded, the dam broke. All that pent-up frustration from years past was washed away.
Bradley’s celebratory laps around the mat, his fist pumps, and flexing brought a large portion of the Giant Center crowd to its feet, and the Athens fan section to tears. There certainly wasn’t a dry eye mat side among the Athens contingent.
I’ll admit I had trouble keeping it together when I interviewed him 10 minutes later, but he was calm, cool, and collected just as you would expect from Gavin Bradley.
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Athens grads Brian Courtney and A.J. Burkhart both wrestled in Day 1 of the NCA Division I Championships Thursday.
Burkhart, wrestling at 184 for Lehigh University, drew defending national champion Aaron Brooks of Penn State in the opening round, and dropped a 21-7 decision. He lost 9-3 to Iowa’s Abe Assad in his first wrestleback match.
Burkhart has penned quite a story to this point. He was too small to wrestle at Waverly as a 7th-grader, failing to reach the 91-pound mark to wrestle at 99 pounds.
Two years later, he won a state title at 99 pounds. Three years after that, Burkhart won a PIAA fifth-place at 126 pounds, and was recruited as a lightweight to Lehigh University.
By the time he hit the mat for Lehigh as a freshman, he was at 149 pounds. His first varsity wins came the following year at 157 pounds.
Two years later, this year, he earned the starting job at 184 pounds, and made an incredible run through wrestlebacks to qualify for Nationals.
His work ethic, and desire to be great is unquestioned. I’m excited to see what the next two years have in store for Burkhart.
As for Courtney, he finished fifth in the 133-pound bracket at the ACC Championships, and was the 25th seed at Nationals.
He knocked off eighth-seeded RayVon Foley of Michigan State, 4-2, in the opening round, and ninth-seeded Michael Colaiocco of Penn, 8-7, in the round-of-16.
Courtney will now face defending national champ and top-seeded Roman Bravo-Young of Penn State in the quarterfinals.
Only one of the four ACC 133-pounder who finished ahead of Courtney are still alive in the championship bracket.
Also alive are a couple of names synonymous with Courtney — Pitt’s Cole Matthews, and Iowa’s Max Murin.
When I think of Courtney, I recall his first PIAA title. It came a year after he lost to Matthews, then a freshman at Reynolds, in the 120-pound state finals.
As a junior, Courtney ended up in a bracket that included a trio of returning state champs — Bedford’s Jon Gabriel, Matthews, and Central Cambria’s Max Murin.
After an opening-round pin, Courtney beat Gabriel, 7-3, in the quarterfinals, then dispatched of Matthews, 9-3, in the semifinals. He beat Murin, 3-2, in the finals to earn “Most Outstanding Wrestler” honors.
Today, Murin, wrestling at Iowa, will wrestle Cornell’s Yianni Diakomihalis in the 149-pound quarterfinals, and Matthews, wrestling for Pitt, will face third-seed Sebastian Rivera of Rutgers.
Gabriel went on to wrestle for two years at Navy, posting a 26-10 record.
Courtney, who has two years of eligibility left despite being a graduate student, is on record as saying this is his last season. If so, thank you for the memories Mr. Courtney, it has been my privilege to chronicle your successes. You were definitely the best high school wrestler I've had the honor of covering on a regular basis.
