The Parkland High School boys wrestling team hosted its annual Winter Duals Invitational last Saturday at Parkland High School. The Trojans finished the day as one of the top teams competing out of 12 different schools in attendance.

Parkland won five of its six matches and found itself behind only by Northampton, which went 6-0.

The Trojans and Kids were the only Eastern Pennsylvania Conference teams at the tournament. Other teams included Abington Heights, Bangor, Boyertown, Delaware Valley, LaSalle College, Northwestern Lehigh, Quakertown, Southern Lehigh, Upper Perkiomen and West Chester Rustin.

Three Trojans appeared among the top performers, which were an undefeated group of 6-0 wrestlers on the day, including Max Pugach at 285 pounds with 33 points, Leo Kern at 145 pounds with 31 points and Luis Moya at 107 pounds with 30 points. The top overall performer was Luke Fugazzotto from Northwestern with 36 points.

Parkland began the day with back-to-back victories over Upper Perk (47-14) and Abington Heights (40-25). The Trojans then dropped their lone match on the day, 33-32, to LaSalle, with one point going to the Explorers on criteria, before finishing the day with three consecutive wins over Quakertown (37-24), Southern Lehigh (48-19) and Northwestern (35-33).

Other top performers for Parkland included Jorge Moya going 5-1 at both 160 and 172 pounds, Matthew Velez ending his day 5-1 at 121 pounds and Braden Todora finishing 5-1 at 114 pounds.

In the closest match of the day for Parkland, its only loss, they fell behind 10-0 after the first two bouts, but battled back to take the next four, including pins by Pugach and Velez, along with major decisions by Moya and Todora, to take a 20-10 lead. After a Jared Santilli major decision at 133 pounds and a technical fall win from Kern at 139 to push their team’s advantage to 29-16, LaSalle picked up 10 points in two bouts with a pin and major decision. Moya’s 11-7 decision at 160 gave Parkland a 32-26 lead going into the final bout, but an Explorers pin at 172 tied the score and they won the match on criteria.

As deflating as that lone loss may have been, the Trojans ended their day with some excitement as they erased a 33-24 deficit with just two bouts left against the Tigers as Christopher Toth won by technical fall at 215 and then Pugach gave his team a pin at 285 and the win.

Parkland has a conference match at Allen Wednesday and then will compete at the Mid-Winter Mayhem Invitational this Friday and Saturday at the Kovalchick Convention Complex, on the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania.