It was a tough stretch for Freedom’s wrestling team, as the Pates were downed in losses to Emmaus and Parkland last week.

The Pates (9-8) fell to Emmaus 37-30 on Wednesday and dropped a 33-25 showdown to the Trojans over the weekend.

Head coach Anthony Marino feels it was a mixed bag of why the team wasn’t able to pull off wins last week against two programs that the Pates hoped to get better results against.

“As far as our loss to Emmaus, I don’t think our guys came out ready to battle,” he said. “I think we looked flat. We have to be ready to compete every time we step on that mat and the match against Emmaus we just weren’t. The loss to Parkland was rough. Although I think the guys competed well, we lost all of the toss up matches and to beat a team like Parkland we have to win more toss ups then we lose. I think my guys know they are better than how we competed against Emmaus and they know that we could wrestle Parkland tomorrow and it be a different outcome, so I think that is a big takeaway from those matches.”

The Pates have struggled in their lightweights, giving up forfeits at 107 and have had a hard time grabbing wins at 114 and 121 this season. The strength of their lineup comes with their upper weights led by Noah MacIlroy (172), Jared Karabinus (189) and Daniel Schiffert (HWT).

That leaves toss up matches in the middle weights harboring even more importance, knowing how they can swing the pendulum on bouts.

Parkland was able to come on top in three of those last week with Elias Sallit notching a 7-6 win over Alex Salim at 139 and Christopher Toth earning a 5-3 sudden victory in overtime over Ivan Bonilla at 160.

Schiffert, who has been a stalwart at heavyweight this year, also fell to Michael Gavrilesku 5-2.

“I think my guys learned to really push the pace against everyone,” Marino said. “There were a few matches that I believe there should have been a stall call but we just didn’t look busy enough to get it. Right now we are just focusing on our next few dual meets and getting better in every position. I’m really starting to pick apart little things we are weak on and building on them to get them ready for postseason.”

Freedom gets back in action this Wednesday with a road trip to Stroudsburg.