By Dom Reed

HERSHEY – State College closed out the evening at the PIAA State Wrestling Championships crowning its own state champion, Asher Cunningham.

In his title bout, Cunningham would draw first blood with a takedown to give him a 3-0 lead. The Penn State Commit would add onto that being granted a escape to extend his lead to 4-0 over Thomas Jefferson Bode Marlow. Marlow would make things interesting cutting the lead down to one 4-3 taking down Cunningham. The State College product wouldn’t be satisfied as he would get the reservse making it 6-3. Marlow would escape away from Cunningham to draw it down to two. Things would get away from Marlow. Cunningham would pull away getting another take down to make it a 9-4 match. Cunningham would go onto to win his second straight State Championship, this time at 172.

We have two seniors,  with (Nic)Berrena and Cunningham that battled and had excellent seasons and you know Asher has been there all year now he’s been our guy that we count on to get big wins for our team.”

“He held true this weekend state tournament followed up last year state championship with another one quite of accomplishment here in Pennsylvania were really proud of Asher.

James Whitbred placed sixth in the tournament. He battled hard in all of his matches just coming up short of third place. He would fall in his third place consolation match to Cade Campell 4-3.

Whitbred will have more opportunities as hes still in his prime and very young.  Cunningham and Berrena will not be back as they wrestled in their final matches in high school. 

“I thought I did pretty good. I still have a lot of work to do,” said Asher Cunningham, when asked about carrying this success into the collegiate level he said he’s excited to get to work.

He will go onto wrestle at Penn State where his Dad Casey Cunningham serves as the associate head coach.