HERSHEY, Pa. -- It's not a stretch to say Derry Area's Jimmy Gulibon has had one of the best two-season starts to a wrestling career in WPIAL history.

Gulibon, a sophomore, has been so dominant in winning two WPIAL and PIAA titles each and compiling a 75-2 record that even seeing him locked in a somewhat competitive match is a rare sight.

So as proud as Gulibon is of winning the 112-pound PIAA Class AAA title match at Giant Center Saturday, he likely is thinking about the win he posted against Devon Lotito of Liberty in the quarterfinals even more because it was "only" by a 7-6 score.

"I just had to put that one behind me," Gulibon said minutes after his 12-5 win against Corey Keener in the final. "[Fellow PIAA champion] Nico Megaludis [of Franklin Regional] was talking to me about it -- he's a great [practice] partner and a great friend of mine -- and [Derry teammate] Travis Shaffer kept telling me to just leave that match go. He's a great partner, too.

"And all my coaches were great, telling me just to forget about it, and that just helped me get back to focusing on the matches ahead of me."

Gulibon won his final two matches by a combined score of 24-8 (and won by technical fall, 16-1, just 2:40 into his preliminary round match), giving little reason to believe he won't be favored in the next two years to join the list of only nine four-time PIAA champions.

"He's definitely a special wrestler," Derry coach Mike Wood said. "He's setting himself up to be in that elite company.

"But there's still two more years to go, and the good thing about Jimmy is he doesn't look ahead. He takes everything as it comes, so he'll do the work. He'll be in the room working on a couple little things.

"He didn't get off the bottom in one of the matches [for example], and I know that bothers him. It probably bothers him more than it bothers us coaches, actually. So he will work on that, but he can set himself up to at least get another [PIAA title] here [next year], and then we'll worry about the next one after that."

Shaffer, a 135-pound junior, figures to make another run at his first title next season. He reached the semifinals for the third consecutive season last week and placed a career-high fourth.

"Travis has got that little semifinal monkey on his back, and I know that's eating away at him," Wood said. "People don't realize how good the kid is ... When you're just a little bit away -- and they've all been close losses -- I know he's going to work even harder than he has been working. What's going to become his biggest focus is becoming a state champ, which he's definitely that good that he can do that."

Megaludis, a Franklin Regional junior, improved to 119-1 in his career when he won his second consecutive Class AAA championship with an 8-4 win against Anthony Marino of Liberty in the 119-pound title match.

Megaludis' only career defeat came in the 2008 PIAA 103-pound semifinals as a freshman. He did not appear to be seriously threatened at any point during this season's PIAA tournament.

Megaludis would figure to have a good chance of adding to the lists of only 16 WPIAL wrestlers to place at PIAAs four times and only 25 wrestlers in the state to win three PIAA titles.

"That's the goal," Megaludis said as he was about to take the podium and receive his gold medal Saturday. "That's definitely the goal."

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