HERSHEY – Alex Nicholas’s season has been anything but ordinary.

Due to low numbers on the Salisbury wrestling team, the senior spent much of the year training with wrestlers from a variety of Lehigh Valley area high schools.

The unusual circumstances never bothered Nicholas, who captured 285-pound Class AA District 11 and Southeast Regional titles in consecutive weeks, and entered his first PIAA Wrestling Championships this past weekend with a sterling 30-1 record.

A truly remarkable run came to a close Saturday at Hershey’s Giant Center, where Nicholas ended his career with a fourth-place finish in the state tournament.

“Having only two wrestlers (including fellow senior Zach Adams) coming into the season, we definitely weren’t really on the map at all,” Nicholas said. “But coming into the season, it was a goal of mine to medal as high as I could, and I think I met that goal.”

Nicholas went 3-2 at the three-day event and advanced to the semifinals, where he was pinned by eventual runner-up Zach Stafford of Cambridge Springs.

The senior bounced back by posting a 9-2 decision over Loyalsock’s Crae McCracken, whom he also beat in the first round, to advance to the third-place match, where he suffered a 4-1 loss in overtime to Redbank Valley’s Brylee Shumaker.

“He was definitely an athletic heavyweight, too,” Nicholas said of Shumaker, who entered the tournament as the Northwest Regional champion with an impressive 35-2 record. “Some of my moves weren’t working as well on him as they were on other kids. I had a close one at the end of regulation but just couldn’t finish it. It ended up going into overtime and he held me down.

“To get here, you’re facing some of the best kids. You have to really find what works and keep pushing the pace throughout the match. Throughout the whole season pretty much all of my wins came by a margin of about three points, so I was definitely used to close matches, but that last one just didn’t go my way.”

After going 23-12 and finishing his season at the regional tournament his junior year, Nicholas made huge gains during his senior campaign to finish his career on the podium, many of which he attributes to training with wrestlers from a variety of other schools, such as Whitehall and Freedom.

“I was all over the place, and it was definitely different,” said Nicholas. “But I think it definitely improved my wrestling, though, wrestling with different people everyday and not having the same practice partners. It got me used to different styles.

“I feel like I’m a different wrestler even from a couple of weeks ago. Coming in and starting off with district and regional titles, I felt like I was wrestling the best I have in my entire career. Just a couple of matches didn’t fall my way.”

Though he might have come up short in achieving his ultimate goal, Nicholas was grateful for an experience that will last a lifetime.

“It was definitely quite an experience, and one that I’ll never forget, especially in my senior year of high school,” he said. “It was fun to get here and a great way to close out my career.”