In the third-place match at the EPC championships last Saturday Northampton faced off against longtime rival Easton. The 38-21 result closely mirrored the 40-19 victory the K-Kids achieved the previous Saturday in their dual versus the Rovers.

The big story was a controversy in the rematch at 145 pounds between CJ Fritz and LeBron Simms. Fritz had a 2-0 lead after the first period and chose down to start the second. From the Easton side of the mat, it looked liked Simms had Fritz on his back and the Rover contingent erupted in celebration when the referee slapped the Resilite.

A different eruption happened seconds later when the announcement came that Fritz had won by fall.

Seth Lisa explained the situation.

“Just because you’re in the offensive position doesn’t mean you can’t pin yourself,” Lisa said. “And he (Simms) was flexing really hard to expose (Fritz) and we noticed he (Simms) was flat on his back. We tried to alert the official, ‘He’s pinning himself’. It seemed the Easton guys and Easton corner couldn’t see that.”

Other Northampton winners on the afternoon were:

113 Carson Wagner 20-4 tech fall over Brendan Bowman in 4:47.

120 Austin Noe 6-2 decision over Ben Fanelli.

132 Aiden Micheli 16-3 major decision over Shae Linegar.

138 Mason Basara 6-4 decision over Nolan Krazer. Basara stepped into the lineup for Alex Hanley. Lisa praised Basara, “Really proud of him. He’s a guy that works hard all year long and I’m glad he got to contribute to this win today.”

152 Dagan Condomitti 26-11 tech fall over James Geiger in 4:44.

160 Joey Confer 5-4 decision over Jayden Hazzard.

172 Rocky Cappolella came back from 4-3 down to win 6-4 over Giovani Macario

215 Makei Hubert with the only pin for the K-Kids. It was in 1:20 against Tyler Cocciolillo.

Thursday, Northampton will be the third seed as the District XI AAA duals get started. They will face the winner of the Liberty and Parkland match in the quarterfinals at 7:30 p.m. at Liberty High School. Tickets are sold only online through districtxi.com. Seniors over 65 are admitted free with proof of age. Masks are required by Bethlehem School District.

In the likely event of the K-Kids advancing to the semifinals, they will wrestle at 10:45 a.m. at Freedom on Saturday. Their probable opponent will be Nazareth. The championship and consolation final are at 5:30 at Freedom in a separate session from the semifinals and consolation semis.