Burrell (in white with blue) vs. Mt. Pleasant

For many area wrestlers, February will be a fast-paced, frenzied month. Burrell, Highlands, Kiski and Plum are all in post-season play, and individual wrestlers from these and other schools such as Fox Chapel, Deer Lakes, Kittanning and Valley will be involved in playoff action as well. There are two sets of wrestling playoffs in February and part of March, and wrestlers in both of those go from sections to WPIALs to Regionals to PIAA states.

Highlands' wrestling coaches B.J. Schaltenbrand and Jeff Pollick. Jeff is the head wrestling coach at Highlands.

First, from January 30 to February 4 are the Sectional and WPIAL Team Wrestling playoffs, where schools who made the playoffs wrestle against each other as a team to advance to the WPIAL AA and AAA finals held at Gateway January 4th. These may be done by the time you read this. AA and AAA playoffs are held simultaneously. From there, the AA and AAA WPIAL champions will go to the state playoffs, while the AA and AAA WPIAL runner-ups may wrestle in a regional tournament to go on to the state Team Wrestling Championships at Hershey February 10-11.

Kiski Area wrestler manhandling a Latrobe wrestler in the WPIAL playoffs

Then, it begins again. This time, it’s the Individual Wrestling playoffs, where individual wrestlers from each school wrestle each other in sections to see who goes to WPIAL playoffs. This gives many more wrestlers opportunity to advance on their own and find out who is the best in their weight class. The finals of an Individuals Tournament could possibly involve up to 28 wrestlers from different schools.

Kiski Area's Tyler Oravec working on a pin of a Latrobe wrestler. Note Oravec's trademark: blue striped socks

Because so many wrestlers are involved, these tournaments are broken up:

Yes! Oravec after his victory

- AA playoffs are held in the week leading up to the WPIAL Individual Team Championships February 25th.

• AAA playoffs are held the following week, March 2-4. WPIAL champs and state qualifiers from both AA and AAA advance to every wrestler's dream: the state PIAA Individual Wrestling Championships at Hershey, March 9-11.