PIAA Class AAA Wrestling Championships: Injury forces Weightman to withdraw
By Jonathan Guth
MVI Sports
An injury prevented Belle Vernon’s Cole Weightman from potentially winning the program’s first state championship Saturday in the PIAA Class AAA Championships at the Giant Center in Hershey.
Weightman has a torn meniscus that he suffered during a quarterfinal bout in the West Super Regional March 6.
Despite not being able to compete, Weightman’s record will indicate three losses and an eighth-place finish in the state. The junior was sixth last season at states.
“Once you tear your meniscus, you have a bigger chance of hurting something else because you are favoring that knee,” Weightman said. “You don’t want to mess something up, so that’s what the doctor told me. He said, ‘Listen, you don’t want to hurt anything else and be out your entire football season as well and half of your wrestling season.’ I put that in perspective.
“The meniscus doesn’t heal like any other joints because there is a lack of blood flow that goes into it, and surgery involves two metal plates and cleaning it out. It heals real funny and you can’t stitch it back together. My doctor says if it is still bugging me in a week or two, we will go ahead with the surgery, but we just have to wait and see what happens.”
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