{"id":108297,"date":"2026-02-08T07:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T07:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/108297\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T07:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T07:25:14","slug":"nazareth-wrestling-beats-bethlehem-catholic-advances-to-piaa-3a-third-place-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/108297\/","title":{"rendered":"Nazareth wrestling beats Bethlehem Catholic, advances to PIAA 3A third-place match"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week removed from beating Bethlehem Catholic for its first District 11 Class 3A team tournament title since 2020<\/a>, the Nazareth Area High School wrestling team triumphed over the Golden Hawks again.<\/p>\n

The Blue Eagles<\/a> defeated Bethlehem Catholic<\/a> 37-21 in the PIAA 3A team tournament consolation semifinals Saturday afternoon at 1st Summit Arena in Johnstown.<\/p>\n

Nazareth (19-2) will face District 1 champion Boyertown in the PIAA 3A third-place match 3 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Golden Hawks finished the season 14-4.<\/p>\n

Junior Connor Gillahan, who clinched Bethlehem Catholic\u2019s quarterfinal win over Boyertown<\/a> Friday night, gave the Golden Hawks a chance at a comeback by pinning junior Austin Christine in 4:03 at heavyweight.<\/p>\n

That pin cut Nazareth\u2019s lead to 30-21 with two bouts to go, but freshman Jack Dressler and senior Derek Fulmer delivered clutch wins at 107 and 114 pounds, respectively, to clinch the Blue Eagles\u2019 victory.<\/p>\n

Dressler scored two takedowns in a 7-3 decision over freshman Michael Nicosia, reversing a 20-1 technical fall loss to Nicosia when they met in the district final a week ago.<\/p>\n

Fulmer capped the match with an 11-3 major decision over freshman Gino Bozzi.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Catholic led 15-3 after it won four of the first five bouts.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Nico Emili won by fall in 38 seconds in the first bout at 121 before fellow sophomore AJ Gomez defeated Michael Good 11-5 at 127. Good defeated Gomez 4-1 in sudden victory to clinch Nazareth\u2019s win in the district final.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Andre Cerrato won 10-4 at 139 and senior Keanu Dillard, a three-time state champion, bumped up to beat senior Jack Campbell, a two-time state medalist, 1-0 at 145.<\/p>\n

The Blue Eagles then picked up five bonus point wins in a row from 152-215.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Chase Brown won by fall in 24 seconds at 152, senior Elijah Simak majored junior Mason Thomas 16-6 at 172 and senior Dominick Tunison picked up a 19-4 tech fall in 3:19 at 189. Seniors Cade Campbell and Brayden Zuercher took forfeits for Nazareth at 160 and 215, respectively.<\/p>\n

The Golden Hawks, who had won the last four PIAA 3A team tournament titles, will now focus on the individual postseason, which begins with the District 11 3A tournament Friday, Feb. 20 at Liberty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A week removed from beating Bethlehem Catholic for its first District 11 Class 3A team tournament title since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-108297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}