On the eve of the 2010 postseason, Hempfield head wrestling coach Jude Bervinchak likened lightweight Austin Miller to one-time Black Knight Troy Millhouse, saying neither got a lot of notice.

Millhouse ultimately earned notice as a PIAA runner-up in 2000, Hempfield's highest state placewinner and only state finalist.

Until Saturday.

Saturday night, Miller joined Millhouse in the silver circle, taking second place at 103 pounds in the PIAA Class AAA championships at Hershey's Giant Center.

Miller was defeated by Canon McMillan's Conner Schram in overtime in the finals, 2-1, in the ultimate tiebreaker.

Two other L-L wrestlers competed in the consolation finals.

Warwick's Antonio Giorgio placed third at 189 while Solanco's Dan Neff took fourth at 130. Giorgio defeated Dallastown's Phil Sprenkle, 8-3. Neff dropped a 9-4 decision to Tyler Rauenzahn of Blue Mountain.

Schram, the Southwest Region runner-up, upset New Oxford's Jordan Conaway in Friday's quarterfinals and the freshman seemed to ride that momentum through the championship as he neutralized Miller's offense from standing.

"He was doing good job of posting me out whenever I tried to work inside," said the Black Knight junior. "He was a lot stronger than he looked."

After two close brushes with Schram shots in the first period, Miller settled in and took away Schram's offense as well and the match was played out from neutral as each wrestlers escaped in regulation.

No scoring emerged in the one-minute sudden victory overtime and Miller rode Schram out in the first 30-second tiebreaker, tying him up in a heretofore unused cross-body ride.

Two could play that game and Schram unveiled his leg ride in the second 30-second tiebreaker period, riding Miller out.

That sent the match to the ultimate tiebreaker, a 30-second rideout. Having scored the first points of the match Miller had choice of top or bottom.

Take top and have to control Schram.

Take bottom and risk not getting out.

"We wanted him to take bottom," Bervinchak said.

"But he hesitated and said, 'What do you want?' I knew he was unsure, and I said 'If you want to take top, take top.' Ultimately, if he thinks he's better on top, that's where he should go."

"Either way, we were going to be comfortable," said Schram's coach, Chris Mary. "In a tiebreaker, we were thinking, [Conner] just has to do his job."

Miller thought he'd seen something from Schram in earlier matches and that influenced his decision.

He took top.

"In previous matches, he was dying in the second and third," Miller said. "Despite that, this match it felt like he went hard the entire time.

"I felt like he rode me extremely tough in the previous overtime, and I rode him, so, I thought maybe I'd get a leg in there [again]."

He never got the chance. Firing his hips out, instead of up as he'd done in regulation, Schram rose to his feet.

For a fleeting moment Miller could've snapped Schram back to the mat.

And then the moment was gone.

And with it the state championship.

Schram turned in and broke free for the winning escape.

"He was on his feet pretty quick," Miller said.

Miller was on his feet pretty quick in the semifinals, breaking free 20 seconds into the second period to take a 1-0 lead on Bethlehem Liberty's Anthony Cabrera.

He increased that advantage midway through the third period, turning Cabrera with a bar-side tilt for two backpoints.

Cabrera worked his way neutral with 39 seconds to go, then set up a home run, over-and-under throw. After a scary moment, Miller successfully warded it off and punched his ticket to the finals, 3-1.

As an aside: Line Mountain's Zain Retherford won the Class AA 103-pound title Saturday, finishing his freshman year with a 40-1 record. His lone loss? To Austin Miller, 7-3, in the New Oxford tournament.

Untethered from the high expectations he'd placed on himself, Giorgio got exponentially better each time he stepped on the mat Saturday.

He capped his comeback from a quarterfinal loss to finalist Andre Petroskie with a victory over Sprenkle.

In a rematch of the championship bout of the District Three tournament [won by Giorgio, 9-4], Giorgio opened a 5-0 lead in the second period, executing a perfect pirouette to avoid Sprenkle's deep single leg then dropping behind for control foro his second takedown. He then held Sprenkle off as he made a late bid to get back in the match in the third period.

In his first consolation match of the day, Giorgio scored seven unanswered points in a span of 33 seconds to pace a 9-1 win over Eric Shaffer of Greater Latrobe, then broke out his entire repertoire of tilts, firemen's carries and petersen reversals in a 2:33 technical fall (15-0) over Trinity's Kyle McWreath.

Rauenzahn had battled the whole way back from a first-round loss to Steve Spearman of McDowell, earning a spot opposite Neff in the bronze-medal match.

There he put on a single-leg clinic, taking Neff down four times in the second period, isolating Neff's right leg each time.

It was the polar opposite of Neff's earlier matches as he was nearly unstoppable on his feet in the morning wrestlebacks, scoring four takedown in a 9-1 major decision over Mason Popham of Uniontown. Then he opened a 5-1 lead on Easton's Mitchell Minotti with a pair of takedowns.

The second, a sprawl-and-spin, proved the winning points in a 5-4 nod when Minotti rallied with a late escape and takedown.