Over the Christmas break, The wrestling team capped of the 1st third of the season at the always tough Trojan Wars out in Chambersburg.  Led by Sr. Capt. 139lb. Jake Neill, who was our lone medalist.  Jake placed 3^rd in this 51 team tournament.  Soph. John Shields (133lb) knocked off the #2 seed but fell one match shy of the podium with his loss in the blood round.  Sr. Peter Carmody  (160lb) and Soph. Michael Kobithen (152lb) went 3-2.  In JV action: 145lb, Aiden Ertwine earned 2nd, while Nathan Cox (Fr./127) 4^th & Andrew Schaeffer (So./139) finished 5^th going 3-1.   

This past Wednesday, the team began SOL Colonial competition with a way too narrow of a win against district rival CB West.  Your Titans eked out a 33-28 victory winning 7 of the 13 bouts in front of a home crowd of around 300.  The dual opened with South wrestling getting big bonus points (3pins & a forfeit) in  of the first 6 matches.  Kieran Padgett (Sr./215) bumped up to Heavyweight (285lbs) and got a 3 period pin. Next up was Hashim Afridi (Fr./107) who followed win his own takedown to back pin in the middle of the 3^rd.  Zach Thomas (Sr./121/Capt.) kept the pins coming with a mean powerful half nelson with 10 sec to in the first period. JP Kervatt-Dawson (Sr./127) picked up a forfeit. The South coaches played a little strategy and forfeited the 133lbs weight-class in order to bump John Shields upto the next weight. Shields & Capt. Peter Carmody both earned decisions at 139 & 160 respectively.  The Titans held a narrow 30-28 lead over the Bucks heading into the winner take all final bout at 189lbs. (a decision is worth 3 team points)  Marco Ott (Jr./189) stepped up with the dual in his hands, took a single leg knock-back td for a come-from-behind 4-3 lead with about a min to go.  Ott demonstrated great savvy riding out his opponent with a few mat returns and the cunning use of the OOB line for the individual and team W’s!!  

Next competition: This Saturday (1/6) at the Rock Yard Dual hosted by CR North 8:30am & next Wed. (1/10) Home vs league foe, Souderton 6:30pm.