The goal for Bethlehem Catholic’s wrestling team coming into the Beast of the East tournament was to have a top-five team finish. The Hawks made easy work of that and nearly came home with the team title, coming up just short to Delbarton (NJ) in the team standings by a 172.5-to-163.5 margin.

Becahi placed five wrestlers and came away with two champions, as Nate Desmond (113) and Kollin Rath (138) both came away from Delaware with individual titles.

Desmond had little trouble knocking off Cadell Lee of Brooke Point (Va.) 7-1 in the finals and Rath recorded an impressive 3-1 victory over New Jersey state champion Tyler Vazquez of Delbarton.

Desmond dominated his way through the tournament en route to his second straight Beast title, outscoring his opponents 55-1 in five bouts.

Rath earned his first title in a major regular season tournament, scoring a takedown on Vazquez with 11 seconds left in the third period to secure gold.

“Nate and Kollin put together really consistent tournaments,” said Hawks head coach Jeff Karam. “They both were very aggressive and I was extremely happy with their conditioning. I think it played a key role in Kollin’s final match.”

Jake Dailey (150) and Andrew Harmon (157) both finished in fifth for Becahi, while Cael McIntyre (132) took seventh.

“I thought we wrestled much better this weekend as compared to how we performed at the Ironman tournament last week,” Karam said. “Definitely made some needed adjustments during this past week and it was good to see the guys wrestle at a higher level. Very happy that all of the placewinners won their last match wrestled. We gave it a good shot to win the team title, but fell just a little short.”

The Hawks (2-0) will wrestle Freedom on Wednesday night this week before hosting their own Christmas tournament next week.

Freedom (5-2) look to shake themselves off from last week’s 69-0 defeat to Nazareth in their battle with the Hawks this week, while Liberty (1-1) hosts Parkland on Wednesday night.