{"id":108595,"date":"2026-02-08T18:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T18:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/108595\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T18:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T18:50:13","slug":"bethlehem-catholic-wrestling-falls-to-franklin-regional-in-piaa-3a-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/108595\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem Catholic wrestling falls to Franklin Regional in PIAA 3A semis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bethlehem Catholic High School wrestling team<\/a> fell short of its bid for a fifth straight PIAA Class 3A team tournament title.<\/p>\n

District 11 runners-up Bethlehem Catholic lost 37-31 to District 7 champ Franklin Regional in the PIAA 3A semifinals Saturday morning at 1st Summit Arena in Johnstown.<\/p>\n

The Golden Hawks (14-3) will face Nazareth, which lost to Council Rock South in the PIAA 3A quarterfinals<\/a> and rebounded with a win in the first round of consolations<\/a>, in the second round of consolations 12:30 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Panthers (21-0) will face District 7 runner-up Norwin in the PIAA 3A championship 3 p.m. Saturday. It\u2019s the first time that the PIAA 3A team final will not feature a team from District 11 since 2021.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Catholic opened up the semifinal with a 20-9 lead through six bouts, but the Falcons took control with a run of four wins, two pins and two technical falls, from 152 to 189 pounds.<\/p>\n

Sophomore John Montgomery\u2019s pin in 63 seconds at heavyweight clinched the win for Franklin Regional, which is seeking its first team state championship since 2015.<\/p>\n

Sophomores Nico Emili (in 20 seconds at 121) and Andre Cerrato (in 3:31 at 133) won by fall for the Golden Hawks. Bethlehem Catholic sophomore AJ Gomez rallied to win a 9-5 decision at 127.<\/p>\n

Senior Keanu Dillard and junior Conor Gillahan both won by tech fall for the Golden Hawks.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Catholic had won four straight PIAA 3A team tournament titles. The Golden Hawks last dropped into consolations of the team state tournament in 2020, when they rallied to take third place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bethlehem Catholic High School wrestling team fell short of its bid for a fifth straight PIAA Class…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-108595","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\/108595","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=108595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}