The Whitehall vs Emmaus wrestling dual meet last Thursday featured 7 bouts that were decided by 2 points or fewer, including the last 6 contested matches. Unfortunately for the Zephyrs, Emmaus came out on top in 4 of those, which was enough for the Hornets to squeak by with a 30-25 win.

A frustrated Tim Cunningham summed up the evening for his squad, “We have to figure out when we need to score points. Wrestle 6 minutes instead of 5 minutes and 50 seconds. That comes with experience and we’re young. They out-wrestled us. Jack (Kocher) came up big for us. Melquan got a pin. They bumped their guys away from Mel. Our lightweights did well, but after Damond, we started to fall apart a little.”

Kocher got the team off to good start by scoring a takedown on a double-leg attack in the third period to win his 172-pound bout against Reilly Bechtel 3-2. Warren made short work of Massimo Tranguch. He locked up a cradle 20 seconds into the match and registered the fall at 1:00 to put Whitehall up 9-0.

Emmaus took the lead for the first time, 12-9, with second period pins at the two heaviest weights. At 215 Jake Gross topped James Hopkins and at 285 E.J. Boney bested Ryan Tran.

Wilmont Kai put the Zephyrs up again by dominating his match at 107 and eventually securing 6 team points with a fall over Jackson Max in 4:33. Kade Pascoe scored a takedown with 10 seconds left in his match to gain a bonus point by virtue of a 16-7 major decision against Aiden Bayard. Damond Pascoe’s second period reversal provided the only points in the 121-pound bout as he beat Alex Issa 2-0 to give Whitehall a 22-12 lead with 6 matches to go.

Dayvion Marshmon, competing for the first time in 3 weeks, seemed to run out of gas as he surrendered a takedown with 10 seconds left to drop a 4-3 decision to the Hornets’ Logan Armstrong.

The bout at 133 was full of strangeness. Three stalling calls against the Zephs’ Nolan Schmeckenbecher were a factor in sending his bout versus Chancellor Henry to sudden victory at 9-9. After a scoreless minute in SV, Schmeckenbecher scored a reversal to start the first tiebreak period. However, a fourth stalling call (all legitimate) gave his opponent 2 points to tie the match. Henry’s escape in TB 2 gave him the 12-11 win.

Seth Pascoe ground out a 1-0 win at 139 on the virtue of a third-period escape with 20 seconds left in regulation against Xayden Sallit. Whitehall led 25-18 with 3 matches to go.

The Zephs’ Trokon Kai scored a takedown with 1:29 left in his bout at 145 to cut Noe Bridges’ lead to 4-3. Kai couldn’t get the turn he needed for back points and Bridges’ escape with 12 seconds left did not give Kai enough time to score a tying takedown.

Cunningham forfeited 152 to Emmaus’ best wrestler, Marco Albanese, setting up a winner-take-all match between Whitehall’s Hudson Saylor and Jesse Scott. Saylor had beaten Scott 10-6 at the Bethlehem Holiday Classic in December.

Scott turned the tables in the hard-fought match with a third-period takedown and was able to fend off Saylor for the final 29 seconds to claim a 3-2 decision and win the meet.

A win by Whitehall would have given them a strong case to be selected as one of the 8 AAA participants in district duals this Saturday. Instead, the team will head to Cedar Crest High School for the Falcon Invitational Tournament which will serve as the team’s final competition before individual districts start on February 24.