Final Ride: Mifflin County’s Nic Allison Headed to Nationals

BY BRIAN CARSON

The table was just a folding one at his sister’s soccer practice, the kind that holds spare water bottles and forgotten flyers.

Nic Allison was four or five years old. He wandered over, picked one up and showed it to his father.

"I want to do this."

His dad, also named Nic, smiled, looked at his wife Ruth-Ann, and said the boy would probably wrestle for a year, then move on to football.

That didn't happen.

Nearly two decades later, the former Mifflin County standout is headed to the NCAA Division II Wrestling Championships at 125 pounds for Kutztown University. The tournament begins March 13 in South Dakota.

Allison (16-7) faces sixth-ranked Devin Gomez (21-7) from Western Colorado in the first round.

For Allison, it's the one trip he'll get.

Technically, he has eligibility left. But he'll graduate this spring with a finance degree and plans to step into the next chapter of his life.

This season is the end of the line.

Which is why what happened at regionals carried so much weight.

Allison arrived believing he belonged in the finals. That confidence lasted one match.

He lost in the opening round.

"I made the mistake of looking past the first match," Allison said. "That really shocked me back into reality."

The loss landed like a punch to the ribs.

Wrestlers know the math. One more loss and the season is over. For seniors, that means something else too. The sport that has defined most of their lives is suddenly finished.

Allison felt it immediately.

"It took a beating on me mentally," he said.

His coaches gathered around him.

The message was simple. Don't think about the bracket. Don't think about tomorrow.

Win one more match.

Then win another.

Extend the career one bout at a time.

Allison did exactly that. He wrestled through the consolation bracket until he reached the third-place match. The opponent was a wrestler from Millersville he had faced earlier in the season.

The stakes were simple.

The winner was going to nationals.

"He's a great kid," Allison said. "But it was business."

Allison won.

"I was on top of the world," he said. "It's a dream come true."

For those who watched him grow up in the Mifflin County wrestling room, the moment fits neatly into a long story.

Allison was one of the anchors of the Huskies program during a strong era. He was a four-time District 6 champion, a four-time PIAA qualifier, and a state placewinner. By the time he graduated, he had compiled a 123-19 record with 72 falls.

He was part of a generation that trained under some of the most accomplished wrestlers the school had ever produced.

"Having the Hidlay’s and Kibe before me was a blessing," Allison said. "You get to see all the hard work being done by them, and it motivates you."

Pennsylvania wrestling leaves little room for shortcuts.

"Pennsylvania, being the best wrestling state, it's not hard to wrestle the best," Allison said. "That's the easiest way to get better."

He carried that foundation to Kutztown.

At first, the jump was jarring.

College rooms are filled with upperclassmen who already know the small details. They understand tie positions, hand placement, and the angles that turn a simple movement into a scoring attack.

Allison redshirted his freshman year and spent much of that time wrestling the team's starting 125-pounder, Julien Maldonado. Day after day, he absorbed the details.

At the beginning, he wondered if he belonged.

That doubt faded with time.

"It was like a family," Allison said of Kutztown. "Even when I was a recruit, they treated me as a member of the team."

He still wrestles like the kid from Mifflin County.

His signature move remains the chin whip, an attack that’s become a personal trademark.

"It is definitely more difficult than high school," Allison said. "But it hasn’t left. It’s still number one."

The cradle sits right behind it.

He knows the move well enough to know its risks.

Sometimes the temptation is to chase it too aggressively.

"You can't force it," he said.

If the chin whip appears in South Dakota, he'll take it.

Because Allison still thinks like the wrestler Mifflin County crowds grew to love.

"I'm a pinner," he said. "I'm going to be looking to close them out early and surprise them."

There’s another reason this trip matters so much.

Last year, Allison broke his collarbone in January. The injury ended any chance he had of reaching nationals.

This year, the door opened.

Even the bracket helped. The top-ranked 125-pounder in Division II, Trayvon Gray of Pitt-Johnstown, withdrew from the regional tournament with a shoulder injury.

Allison took advantage of the opening.
Now the destination is South Dakota.

And then something else begins.

He'll graduate in May with a degree in finance and plans to return to Fleet Reps in Yeagertown, where he previously worked as an intern selling emergency vehicle lighting.

Wrestling will remain close.

Allison plans to stay involved with the Juniata program, where his girlfriend's father, Jeremy Smith, coaches.

But the competition itself is almost finished.

Seventeen years in the sport have taught him something simple.

"Someone told me growing up that once you wrestle, everything else in life is easy," Allison said. "The discipline this sport teaches you is unmatched."

The nerves never disappear.

"I've been wrestling for seventeen years, and the nerves have never gotten any better," he said.

He still feels them when he steps onto the mat.

The difference now is perspective.

Allison has already lived a full wrestling life. A little kid who grabbed a flyer. A high school champion in Lewistown. A college wrestler who battled through defeat to earn one last chance.

Now there is one more tournament.

One more walk to the mat.

And one more opportunity to extend the career that began with a piece of paper on a table.