Head coach Eric Snyder couldn’t reel off a name or year when Salisbury crowned its last district wrestling champion. It’s been that long.

A number of Falcons have been close before. Anthony Dee advanced to the semifinal round three times of the district tournament, but failed to ever advance to the championship bout. Alex Nicholas achieved that same feat last year as a junior when he took fourth place in the District 11 Class 2A field at heavyweight.

But over the weekend, Snyder witnessed that drought come to an end. Nicholas ran through the heavyweight field, capturing two pins along the way, and became the district champion with a 6-4 decision over Northern Lehigh’s Cameron Kates in the final bout.

“I told him when he walked on the mat this was all him this year,” Snyder said. “We can’t take any credit for this. There were times where we didn’t see him for days at a time just with the whole situation and sending him somewhere. His hard work paid off.”

“When I gave up football to really pursue wrestling, this was my first goal out of the next three coming up,” Nicholas said. “We’ll see how it goes from here.”

With just two wrestlers on this year’s Salisbury team, including Zach Adams who won a match at 126 pounds in the district tournament, it was tough for either grappler to have a set practice schedule. There were times when both traveled to other schools to practice with other area wrestlers.

And forget about practice against one another, as the two Falcons are separated by roughly 100 pounds.

But despite those cards stacked against him, Nicholas prevailed on the season’s biggest stage to date. He earned falls over Mahanoy’s Ryan Wuttke and Jim Thorpe’s Ryan O’Rourke in the first two rounds. That was followed by a 7-3 decision over Schuylkill Haven’s Max Matko that lifted Nicholas into the coveted final round that has eluded Salisbury in recent years.

“I just wanted to wrestle the best I could,” Nicholas said. “I’ve been working on stuff. I’ve been learning the past couple of weeks now and I brought that into here.”

“I think the semifinal match and the final match were by far the two best matches he’s wrestled all year,” Snyder said. “He probably can’t wrestle any better than what he did. He had the right mindset and he went out and did what he is good at with the slide-by and staying aggressive the whole time.”

The finals bout came against an opponent Nicholas was all too familiar with in Kates, who he lost to by a point just a few weeks ago. What did he learn from that loss, his only setback of the season?

“Definitely keep his weight off me when I shoot and use more outside stuff, not straight-on doubles into all of his weight,” Nicholas said, now 27-1 on the season. “The first time I wrestled him I shot straight on, and I learned my lesson the hard way there. So I was looking for outside stuff. I started out with a slide-by and that worked well.”

After Nicholas got an early takedown, Kates used his speed to earn a reversal and tie the match at 2-2. With the match deadlocked at 3-3, Nicholas’ escape with under a minute remaining in the third period gave him a one-point lead he wouldn’t surrender. He earned a takedown seconds later for good measure.

“He reversed me, so I had to get out of the bottom there,” Nicholas said. “And then from there I just had to be real careful with my body positioning and keeping it tough on top on my feet.”

It’s the second year in a row that Nicholas is headed to regionals, which will be held on Friday and Saturday at Wilson West Lawn. After missing out on advancing to states last year, he’s hoping to qualify for a trip to Hershey. And then some.

“I definitely want to qualify for states this year and medal out there,” Nicholas said. “That’s my end goal.”

Central Catholic’s Jack Yanders picked up a 4-3 decision over Adams in the first round of districts on Friday. Adams, who finished the season at 16-13 after districts for Salisbury, picked up a major decision over Mahanoy’s Yaddiel Barazza (14-2) before suffering a 6-5 sudden victory loss to North Schuylkill’s Mason Madden-Edwards.