By Harold Raker
The last time a statewide television audience saw Spencer Myers wrestle, he was being carried off the wrestling mat in the Giant Center, in Hershey, by his father and coach, Todd.
The look of agony on Spencer’s face told the story. The then-Selinsgrove junior 215-pounder had seen his lifelong dream of a state wrestling gold medal dashed by an injury that occurred at the absolute worst time.
Myers was leading Connellsville’s Nate Gaffney when he fell to the mat, clutching his right ankle in pain. Although he continued to wrestle, basically on one leg, Myers lost the match, and the gold medal by a 5-4 decision when Gaffney reversed him with 23 seconds left. The injury was later diagnosed as torn ligaments.
This afternoon, Myers and his father make their return to Hershey, where Spencer is the favorite to win the state championship at 215.
Yet, as Spencer said Wednesday: “There are 16 guys there and every one of them believes he can win the gold.”
Although motivated by the events of last year’s state final, Spencer is not consumed by it. “It’s been one of the motivators, but I’ve always wanted to win the gold in wrestling, and I just keep going out and try my hardest to win it,” he said.
“Right now I want to worry about one match at a time. If I keep my head in it and worry about one person at a time, I know I will do (fine),” he said. “I worry about (preliminary opponent Dawson) Peck (of Chambersburg) first, and about doing my own things and getting the job done.”
Said coach Todd, “People ask us ‘Are you looking forward to meeting Gaffney in the finals?’ But I tell them it may not happen for either one of them. There are three more matches you need to win before that. I think (Spencer) has got the right frame of mind, and is staying focused for each and every match.”
Title rematch possible
Gaffney is on the other side of the bracket and Myers’ semifinal opponent last year, Antonio Giorgio, of Warwick, is wrestling at 189, where he is ranked No. 2 in the state.
Myers, a University of Maryland recruit and an all-state defensive lineman on the Seals’s Class AAA state championship football team, is one of two Valley wrestlers competing in the PIAA Class AAA tournament. The other is Shikellamy senior Miles Wolfe, wrestling at 152. Class AAA preliminaries begin at 4 p.m.
In addition, a dozen Valley athletes will compete in the Class AA tournament, which gets under way at 9 a.m. today.
The locals are: 103, Line Mountain freshman Zain Retherford and Mifflinburg sophomore David Sheesley, 125; Mifflinburg senior Ethan Midkiff; 130, Line Mountain sophomore Adam Kritzer and Shamokin junior Brandon Pesarchick; 135, Shamokin junior Josh Lahr; 140, Shamokin senior Derek Shingara; 145, Warrior Run senior Elias Biddle; 152, Warrior Run senior Tyler Hain; 171, Lewisburg junior Nathaniel Brown; 189, Milton freshman Ryan Solomon; and 285, Shamokin junior Wes Tillet.
Myers ranked No. 7 in U.S.
Myers takes a season record of 40-0 and a career mark of 145-18 into the state tournament, and he has been ranked No. 1 in the state all season by Pennsylvania Wrestling Rankings. He is ranked No. 7 nationally by Intermat. Gaffney is ranked No. 20.
But the shoe was on the other foot a year ago. Giorgio was ranked No. 1 in the state and also ranked nationally and was the favorite to clean house in the state tournament. Few gave Myers a chance to get past Giorgio and into the final.
“Last year, with Giorgio, everybody was talking about how good he was and how he was going to manhandle everybody,” he said.
But Myers defeated Giorgio 8-5 in the semifinals.
Now that the roles are somewhat reversed, Myers knows he will be the hunted.
He faced an unbeaten and highly regarded Tarak Carey of Whitehall in last week’s Northeast Regional in Bethlehem, winning 9-0. “I didn’t really worry about him, just tried to wrestle smart and do everything I could to put points on the board.”
Like he did against Giorgio, Myers said: “I wrestled my own match after the first period. I did everything that I could do and just tried to control the match ... control it and get my momentum going and get rolling.”
Silver lining
Myers said he is probably more motivated now than if he had won the gold, but he added that it still would have been important to win this season because no one else from Selinsgrove has won two state golds.
Coach Myers said that what happened in last year’s final was especially tough being both the coach and father of the injured wrestler. But he is proud of how his son has responded.
“It was heartbreaking to watch, to see something (slip away) that you’ve worked for all your life,” Todd said. “It makes it all a little bit more painful as a parent.”
But Todd said he and Spencer both knew that they couldn’t dwell on it, that he had to recover, recharge and get ready for the next season.
“It happens all the time in sports and in life,” Todd said. “Things don’t always go your way. It was painful, but it was a life lesson, unfortunately, that you just have to recover and regroup and try again.
“Spencer has done that very well. Right after that happened, he wanted to get right back into it,” Todd said, noting that his son, although not fully recovered, competed less than a month later in the Junior Nationals in Virginia Beach, where he reached the finals, but reinjured his ankle and defaulted.
A couple of weeks later, he got back into more tournaments, including the Pennsylvania Junior Freestyle event in which he lost by one point to Gaffney again, when his ankle still had not fully healed. By the end of the summer, Todd said, Spencer was fully recovered and competed in the prestigious Junior and Cadet Nationals in Fargo, N.D., where he placed fifth, earning All-America status.
“They say things happen for a reason. I think with Spencer’s injury last year, it helped a lot in the recruiting process. (The college coaches) knew what he could do when he is healthy; now they know what he can do with an injury,” he said.
Spencer agreed.
“I showed them that I could keep going through even the hardest times and keep my head in it, stay in the match and go for what I wanted,” he said.
“... ready to go”
Nevertheless, he won’t forget the pain, both physically and mentally from that moment last March.
“It was pretty hard,” Spencer said. “I had just beaten Giorgio, who was ranked nationally, in the semis and kind of had my momentum going. I was kind of an underdog in the whole tournament and then I was in the finals and everybody was there to watch and it was even on state television (Pennsylvania Cable Network).
“It took a little while, but I ended up getting over it. Now I am 100 percent back and ready to go.”
In addition to the tournaments, Spencer said he worked extremely hard in the offseason for wrestling and football because he wanted to win gold in both sports (he is also a thrower for the Seals’ track and field team).
“It wasn’t too hard. When it came to football season, I wanted to help my team win a state championship. It was really hard some mornings when I woke up and worked out, but I could do my lifting during school. Then I just went to football practice and on weekends I wrestled if I wanted to.
“Going back and forth between (the sports) and trying to win two state championships was a little bit difficult.
But, he added “Very well worth it.”
Especially if he gets to stand on the top of the podium in Hershey on Saturday night.
n E-mail comments to hraker@dailyitem.com
