The Northampton wrestling team kicked off their dual meet season last Wednesday by hosting Emmaus in Pete Schneider Gymnasium.

The bout order starting at 152 kept the team score close. The K-Kids won the final four weight classes, including 2 pins and a forfeit in the final three matches to notch the win, 43-24.

Despite the relatively easy win, head coach Joe Provini was dissatisfied with the overall team performance.

He explained, “I think there were some nerves there, maybe. We were kind of uninspiring early on. I was hoping that we would go out and take the fight to them and instead we did a lot of standing around early on. But I’ve got a lot of young guys in their first dual meet in the gym and I understand that nerves got to them. Credit to Emmaus, they came out and took it to us early on.”

Emmaus jumped on top 9-0 with a pair of wins at 152 and 160. Xayden Sallit scored a 13-5 major decision against Devlin Chevere and Jesse Scott claimed a tech fall over Daniel Herritt, 25-10 in 5:44.

Chace Roland made a first period takedown and second period escape stand up with a third period rideout of Scott Furniss to win 3-0 at 172 and put three team points on the Kids’ side of the ledger.

The three heaviest weight classes were all decided by first period falls. The Hornets collected six points at 189 as Massimo Tranguch pinned Joell Small in 1:46. Jake Koch only took 20 seconds to get those points back for Northampton against Logan Roth. At heavyweight, Gavin Grell saw his first action of the season and pinned Ashir Choudhry in 1:13 to even the team score at 15.

As the lineups turned over to the light weights, the pinning trend continued. Emmaus freshman and Top Hat champion at 107 Emilio Albanese got the fall against Michael DiSante in 2:53. At 114 Northampton countered with their own Top Hat-winning freshman as Gabe Ballard decked Jackson Max in 1:25 to square the match at 21.

In the only bout of the night that saw a lead change, the Hornets picked up a decision at 121 as Teagan Caciolo scored 6 third-period points to overcome a 3-1 deficit against Ryan Marano.

The final four matches posed no problems for the K-Kids. Colin Marano used 9 takedowns to beat Aiden Bayard 19-7 for a major decision at 127. At 133, Trey Wagner could have easily scored a tech fall, but he persevered and pinned Tommy Fallstich in 5:06. Chase Grabfelder received a forfeit at 139. Austin Noe racked up his team-leading fifth pin of the season in 3:02 against Chancellor Henry in the final bout of the night at 145.

Over the weekend, the squad headed to the University of Delaware for the prestigious Beast of the East tournament. Gabe Ballard took home 3rd place honors at 113 pounds, only losing to Raekwon Shabazz of Xavier, CT, a 2023 high school national champion.

Austin Noe and Gavin Grell both survived to day 2 of the grueling event, with Grell coming out on the short end of a 3-1 decision in the blood round, falling just short of a medal.