Eleven years ago, Mark McKnight took a flyer home to his mom about wrestling. Now, he is a virtual poster-boy for hard work and determination in the sport. One year after winning the Class AAA Southwest Regional tournament and placing second in the PIAA at 103 pounds, McKnight has some unfinished business. He's currently wrestling in the 119-pound weight class, where he took third last weekend at the Powerade Tournament, to give him further inspiration. "I was a little disappointed because I should have placed (higher) at that tournament and I didn't," said McKnight, a Chartiers Valley junior. "I need to work on my conditioning a lot right now, in order to get better." Placing third at Powerade and losing to Waynesburg's Coleman Scott was not how McKnight had envisioned the weekend. But a loss at this point in the season might be more beneficial to him, than a victory. "I really think the loss and placing third will help to get him in better condition," said Chartiers Valley coach Mike Johnson, who is in his 6th season. "He definitely needs to pick it up, as far as his conditioning. On a scale of one to ten right now, he is at about an eight." Currently, McKnight's conditioning involves a minimum of five days of practice per week. Practice consists of drilling moves right into live wrestling, followed by sprints and sprawls. Even after all of that hard work, McKnight still manages to stay after practice three days a week for additional hours of practice. "Staying after and practicing when I'm tired, really helps me out overall for my matches," said McKnight, who is 15-1 this season. "I go against Scott (Hutton) hard most of the time and that gets us in good shape, better than most." He also wrestles against Chartiers Valley standouts like Sean Cote and Vince Minella and assistant coach Brian Hutton. All of the hard work and great competition is nothing new to McKnight. He placed second at the Junior Freestyle National Tournament last summer and third in the Greco-Roman Junior National Tournament. Both accomplishments would warrant a period of rest for most, but to McKnight, it meant working harder. "He was weightlifting with me and he also was involved in the Angry Fish Wrestling Club with Ty Moore," Johnson said. "He keeps improving every year and that really is due to the fact that he wrestles constantly." After losing 12-3 in last year's 103-pound state final by Jermaine Jones of West Chester Henderson, McKnight's improvement this season comes with higher expectations. "I really want to step up the challenge this season and start winning more," McKnight said. "I would like to win the state title and for our team to win the WPIAL." And according to the coach, those expectations aren't far-fetched. Especially since McKnight plans on dropping down to 112 pounds for the individual section tournament. "He has been weighing in right around 112 all season, so it's really not going to be difficult for him to get down to that weight," Johnson said. The state title would give him one more piece of paper to bring home to Mom. The most coveted poster among PIAA wrestlers is one of the championship bracket with his name as the victor. "A state title, that's definitely within his grasp," Johnson said.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---