Every time Jacob Lizak’s name was announced to report to a mat during the PIAA wrestling championships last week in Hershey, only one wrestler showed up with paperwork.

Lizak, who won the Northeast Regional 126-pound AAA championship the week before, got the worst news any state qualifier, let alone a senior, could have gotten when he wasn’t cleared to compete by PIAA doctors before the tournament because of a skin rash he developed in the lead up to the final high school tournament of his life.

Whether the news of Lizak’s departure had any impact on Parkland’s showing at the Giant Center won’t be known, but it certainly took away the Trojans top competitor coming into the tournament, as Parkland left Hershey without any hardware. Nick Dolak (113), Andrew Mastrangelo (126) and Nate Feyrer (220) failed to advance to the medal round and were bounced from the tournament in day two of the tournament.

“I think it’s an individual tournament honestly and our kids felt bad for Jacob,” said Parkland head coach Ryan Nunamaker, “but I don’t know if they let that affect their performance. We felt terrible for Jacob, with it being his senior year, coming off a regional crown and to not get an opportunity to compete your senior year is a really tough thing to deal with. There’s nothing you can say or do about. It’s just bad timing to get a skin rash.”

Skin issues aren’t uncommon in wrestling, but it’s just another piece of the puzzle that wrestlers have to deal with before entering the state’s grand stage and Lizak encountered the cruelest fate a participant had to deal with.

For the trio of Parkland wrestlers that did compete, the PIAA tournament was a mixed bag of lessons for underclassmen, as Dolak and Feyrer lost in the consolation rounds.

Dolak actually earned his first state victory with a fall over Cathedral Prep’s Tyler McKinney in 4:35 in the preliminary round, only to lose his next two bouts in the tournament.

Feyrer lost his first two bouts of competition to be eliminated on day one of the tourney, while Mastrangelo kept his hopes for a medal his senior year all the way to the end of 4-2 defeat to Chandler Olson of Shippensburg during Friday afternoon’s third round of consolations.

With the bout scoreless heading into the third period and Mastrangelo on top, Olson earned a reversal with 51 seconds left to essentially seal the deal, but Mastrangelo fought for a reversal of his own, evening the score momentarily before that reversal turned into two back points for Olson, subsequently giving him the victory and a berth in the medal rounds.

“He [Olson] did a good job of riding Andrew,” said Nunamaker of Olson keeping Mastrangelo down the entire second period. “Andrew got the reversal but gave up two back points in the process. It’s the way things go sometimes, but he had a great tournament his senior year. If we would have told him before the season that he’d make it out to states and get a win, he probably would have taken that.”

What Parkland takes away from their 2016 trek to Hershey is a bit of bad luck, but also hope moving forward.

“Hopefully for our younger guys that were out here this serves as motivation,” Nunamaker said in reference to Dolak and Feyrer returning next season. “For our seniors, this is what makes it tough in coaching. I wish Jacob would have had an opportunity to wrestle but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”