With all of the blood, sweat and tears that are shed on a wrestling mat, it seems incongruous that a wrestler’s state tournament should end due to something that doesn’t take place during actual wrestling.

The Roughies’ Gavin Fehr was hit with a third caution for an illegal starting position with 22 seconds left in his scoreless second round consolation bout and the resulting point was decisive. A last second reversal made the final score 3-0 against Cody Hamilton of Grove City in the round of 16.

Fehr was able to look past the disappointment and reflect on the experience of competing at Hershey.

“I thought it was pretty fun,” he said. “My goal originally was to just make it here. And once I did make it here my goal was to win one match, which I did. I feel like it could have been better, but it wasn’t awful.”

Thinking back to his preliminary round win over Mason Weyant of Chestnut Ridge, Fehr managed a smile and said, “That was fun, yeah. Probably the highlight of my wrestling career so far.”

Against Weyant, Fehr capitalized on a third period reversal to come back from a 3-2 deficit to win the match 4-3.

In round 1, Fehr dropped a 7-0 decision to Easton Toth of Forest Hills, who finished as the 8th place medalist at 138 pounds in AA.

Head Joe Russo described consoling Fehr after he was eliminated.

“We told him that nothing’s guaranteed, but he is a junior,” he said. “He does a lot of weightlifting in our program in the offseason. He does a lot of offseason wrestling. You have to use it as your motivation. We teach these kids, it’s kind of a cliché, but it’s more about life. If you want something in life, you have to go take it.”

Next year Fehr will lead a group of seven returning starters for Catasauqua. The team will look to build on a season where they went 11-5, won the Colonial League West Division and reached the District XI AA semifinals along with the top two AA teams in the state, Saucon Valley and Notre Dame GP.

As an individual, Fehr will almost certainly join the 100-win club. His career record is 72-39 after this year’s 37-13 campaign. He will also look to bring the first state medal back to Catasauqua since Curtis Garner in 2010.