It will be an important week for Freedom’s wrestling program, as the Patriots take on Emmaus this Wednesday followed by another dual meet tournament at Lehighton’s Coal Cracker Invitational.

Head coach Anthony Marino’s first task this week will be taking on the Green Hornets (8-3) Wednesday night at home in a battle against similar tier EPC programs looking to keep climbing the league hierarchy rankings.

The Pates (11-5) are still searching for a quality conference win and this week’s tilt would be an important step in that direction.

“Looking for my guys to really make a statement with wrestling Emmaus,” said Marino. “They are a tough team and I want my guys really pushing the pace and trying things we have gone over in the room and sticking to basics. I want them really using their gas tanks. Most of them can wrestle hard for 10 plus minutes and there were times over the weekend where they came off the mat after a loss and still had more in the tank.”

Freedom came away from the Central Dauphin Duals over the weekend with a 4-1 mark, beating Manheim Township, Waynesboro, Pittston and Northern York in the process, but fell to the hosts by a 64-4 tally, as CJ Horvath (121) was the only victor in the match picking up a 12-1 major decision over C.J. Ferree.

Despite the setback to Central Dauphin, there was progress.

“Took a few things away as far as battling with the top level guys and giving up points a little too early and easily,” said Marino. “My guys have fight in them and I think we just kind of missed the mark when wrestling a top-10 team like Central Dauphin. After getting beat by CD, we looked a little sluggish for the next dual and I think most of them were still trying to battle through the fact that we had just lost, so just trying to get them to understand that we need to have a short memory and be ready to compete at the highest level with a quick turn around.”

With a trip to Lehighton Marino wants to see his group start to move toward postseason form.

“Looking for the team to hit their stride this time of the year and start to reach that peak performance but not quite be there yet,” said Marino. “I don’t want them peaking to early and then start coming down for the postseason but, this should be about the time they start getting very sharp and scoring big points on the edge of the mat and continuing to wrestle in all positions. It should also be the point in the season where they can really start to push opponents in all positions and really start to pull away from guys they may have seen in the past this season and had close matches with.”