St. Francis senior Gage LaPlante has been selected as the WNY Athletics Wrestler of the Week presented by the SonShine Charitable Fund for the week of Monday, February 19th – Saturday, February 24th, 2024.
Gage finished a remarkable high school wrestling career with a 3rd place finish at the 61st NYSPHSAA Intersectional Wrestling Championships on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 23rd and 24th in Albany.
As the 2-seed in the weight class, LaPlante stormed to the semifinals with pins in his first two matches. After suffering a loss in the semifinal, Gage’s ability to quickly refocus helped him to reach the bronze match with a pin in the consolation semifinal. In the consolation final, Gage was a winner by pin over a wrestler whom he took a loss to in December to capture 3rd at 170-pounds in NYS large schools.
During his career, Gage captured Section VI and NYS CHSAA individual titles, two NYS place finishes, two Eastern States place finishes including the 2023 160-pound title, an 8th place finish at the 2022 Powerade Invitational, an NHSCA All-American place finish, and numerous other individual honors.
Gage led his teams to league titles in each of the last three years while also leading the Red Raiders to the 2023-2024 CHSAA Dual Meet title this year and his Section VI team to an undefeated season and the NYSPHSAA Division I Dual Meet title in 2022-2023.
Gage finishes his career with a 221-34 career record with 123 pins. This season he broke the St. Francis program single season wins record with 52 victories. After graduation, Gage is headed to the United States Military Academy at West Point.
According to his coaches, Gage carries a high GPA at St. Francis High School and in addition to being a dedicated wrestler and student of the sport, is also respectful, well behaved in school, and is highly regarded by his teachers.
WNY Athletics is proud to partner with the SonShine Charitable Fund as our presenting organization for the WNY Athletics Wrestler of the Week for the 2023-2024 season.
The mission of the SonShine Charitable Fund is to financially assist families who have experienced the death of a child by offering monetary grants to help with some portion of funeral costs. The Fund covers all eight counties of WNY and the four most north western counties of Pennsylvania.
Please visit https://www.sonshinefund.com for more information and to donate.