Zephyr gymnasium was the scene for some robust wrestling action last Saturday as Whitehall kicked off the new year hosting their annual Zephyr Duals.

The Duals, now in its twenty-first season, featured 15 teams from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with Muncy Junior-Senior High School claiming the championship with their victory over Quakertown in the finals.

Whitehall finished in seventh place, downing Bangor 41-36 to earn that spot.

The Zephyrs opened the Duals with a 53-24 win over Southern Lehigh. In that match, 10 wrestlers were victorious with Tyler Cunningham, Johnny Colon, Josh Grol, Aiden Toussaint, Kai Clark and Sean Cunningham all providing bonus points en route to the win.

Head coach Tim Cunningham said that they wrestled really strong in that opening bout, receiving excellent performances from the entire team to earn the victory.

They met Quakertown in their next match and fell 51-22 to the eventual championship finalists. The Zephs got wins from five wrestlers in that match as Wilfred Jimenez pinned Justin Adamson in 1:50 at 106; Tyler Cunningham scored a 13-2 major decision over Kyle Miller at 113; Xavier Arner posted a hard fought 2-1 decision over Zack Lewis at 126; Grol decisioned Vincent DiSpirito 4-1 at 132, and Clark pinned Jake Wheeler in 0:32.

Cunningham said that effort against the Panthers was the highlight of the tourney for them as a team.

“Our second match was against Quakertown, the No. 2 seed, was our best performance of the day even though we lost we wrestled strong as a team,” said Cunningham.

In their third match the Zephs were locked up with Wyalusing, and they fell to the Rams 43-29. They got wins from Jimenez, Tyler Cunningham, Arner, Toussaint, and Timothy Ritter, with Jimenez, Tyler Cunningham, Clark and Ritter all earning bonus points in the match.

While the Quakertown loss provided a lot of positives, Cunningham felt that they did not wrestle well as a team against Wyalusing and was a disappointing match.

However, it did allow them the opportunity to make amends which they did in the seven-eight bout against Bangor. They did exactly that with a hard-earned 41-36 win over the Slaters. Eight Zephyrs got their hands raised in that bout, paving the way for the win.

Tyler Cunningham completed a perfect day in that match, going 4-0 as he pinned Landon Uhler in 5:15 in their final bout.

Clark also had a stellar tourney, pinning each of his opponents on Saturday, culminating with a fall over Gavin Sandt in 0:18.

Jimenez also had a strong Saturday, going 4-0 with three falls, while Arner also registered four wins on the day. Grol had three wins on Saturday, his final victory coming via pin over Bangor’s Trent Roberts in 0:33

Cunningham said that their win against the Slaters showed willingness to learn from their losses to Quakertown and Wyalusing which paved the way for the win against Bangor.

“The good thing is each wrestler was able to take the constructive criticism and bounce back and defeat Bangor for seventh,” said Cunningham.