{"id":108959,"date":"2026-02-09T10:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/108959\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T10:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:22:14","slug":"gillahan-stays-out-of-danger-sends-becahi-wrestling-to-piaa-3a-semis-with-smart-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/108959\/","title":{"rendered":"Gillahan stays out of danger, sends Becahi wrestling to PIAA 3A semis with smart win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bethlehem Catholic junior Connor Gillahan had to tread a fine line when he stepped on the mat for the final bout of the Golden Hawks PIAA Class 3A quarterfinal with Boyertown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWrestling with those big guys, you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Gillahan said.<\/p>\n

The Bears won five bouts in a row to cut Bethlehem Catholic\u2019s lead to 29-28 heading to the final bout at heavyweight.<\/p>\n

Gillahan, giving up more than 34 pounds to Boyertown senior Brody Ayres, scored a takedown about 10 seconds in, maintained top position for the rest of the first and second period and stayed out of danger on bottom in the third.<\/p>\n

Gillahan\u2019s 3-1 win clinched the District 11 champion Golden Hawks\u2019 32-28 win at 1st Summit Arena in Johnstown Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little scary for sure. Especially, there\u2019s a lot of noise with all of the other big upsets<\/a> going on,\u201d Gillahan said. \u201cI just stayed focused. Coach told me, \u2018Go out there, wrestle smart.\u2019 That\u2019s what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo nothing risky. He (Gillahan) can probably pin that kid (Ayres), but we didn\u2019t need a pin. We needed him to not make a silly mistake,\u201d Bethlehem Catholic coach Mike Cole said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great kid. I\u2019ve put him there before and he knows what to do. Smart kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Catholic<\/a> (14-2) will face District 7 champ Franklin Regional (20-0) in the PIAA 3A semifinals 10:30 a.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

The District 1 champion Bears will drop to the consolation bracket and face District 6 champion State College 9 a.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Golden Hawks led 29-4 through seven bouts before Boyertown stormed back, starting with senior Logan Oakes pin in 20 seconds at 152 pounds. Senior Carter Stouch then gave the Bears a tossup win at 160 when he defeated junior Mason Thomas 5-3.<\/p>\n

Senior J.D. Heiser earned another first-period fall for Boyertown at 172. At 189, Bethlehem Catholic junior Zach Papcsy led senior Josh Larrimore 7-2 after the first period, but Larrimore scored a takedown about 30 seconds into the second and locked up the fall in 2:56.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gave them some momentum,\u201d Cole said of the pin at 189. \u201cThat kid was a pretty good wrestler too and we were performing really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Junior Kaleb Dumin\u2019s 8-2 decision at 215 set the stage for the winner-take-all finale at heavyweight.<\/p>\n

The early takedown gave Gillahan the ability to focus almost entirely on staying out of dangerous situations against a bigger opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was definitely part of my game plan for sure,\u201d Gillahan said of scoring first. \u201cI know my neutral is pretty good, especially against these bigger guys. The reason I didn\u2019t get back to my offense, though, is I just didn\u2019t want to risk it. I knew I could ride out the guy on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

After staying in top position for close to four minutes straight, Gillahan took a couple of stall calls on bottom in the third to avoid a potentially match-changing turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe third period, it was scary. I knew I probably could\u2019ve got out on bottom on that kid,\u201d Gillahan said. \u201cI\u2019m used to wrestling bigger kids, coach has bumped me up plenty of times before. I just figured, if I could just get through that period then the match is done. I was confident I wasn\u2019t going to get turned. I got hit with the stalling a little bit there, but still did my job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Catholic won six of the first seven bouts, earning bonus points in each of those wins.<\/p>\n

Freshman Michael Nicosia started things off for the Golden Hawks with a 15-2 major at 107. Sophomore Nico Emili secured Becahi\u2019s lone pin of the match at 121 before fellow sophomore AJ Gomez mounted a furious comeback at 127.<\/p>\n

Gomez trailed junior Boden Waite 8-1 about a minute into the bout before he scored a takedown each in the first, second and third period and a trio of four-point turns to earn a 24-9 technical fall in 5:52.<\/p>\n

\u201cAJ, what a fabulous mindset, right?,\u201d Cole said. \u201cHe\u2019s down by seven or five, I think it was five, and he just chips away at it and then just dominates. It was awesome, great mindset by him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sophomore Andre Cerrato won a 17-3 major decision at 133 before junior Reef Dillard and senior Keanu Dillard earned back-to-back tech falls at 139 and 145, respectively.<\/p>\n

The Golden Hawks are looking for their fifth straight PIAA 3A team tournament title.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of things,\u201d Cole said of where Becahi needs to improve ahead of Saturday. \u201cWe can win. We just gotta compete at all the right weights.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethlehem Catholic junior Connor Gillahan had to tread a fine line when he stepped on the mat for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-108959","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\/108959","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=108959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}