The dual meet started at 138 pounds, which meant four consecutive matches where both teams had wrestlers ranging from pretty darn good to elite on the mat. As predicted in preview analysis, Blair Academy won the opening three matches. No. 4 Todd Preston beat Nick Barber 4-2 at 138 pounds, No. 9 Dylan Milonas beat Markus Scheidel, 12-6, at 145, while Russ Parsons upended Matt Van Curen, 7-1, at 152.
Facing a 9-0 deficit, senior Jacob Davis put the Eagles on the board with a 2-1 victory at 160 over Patrick Coover. No. 5 Mark Martin majored Addison Knepshield 14-3 to cut the deficit to 9-7 after 170, and Domenic Abounader gave the Eagles their first lead of the match with a 10-3 decision over Michael Mocco at 182 -- the score was 10-9, advantage St. Edward.
The Buccaneers responded as No. 15 Frank Mattiace came through with a second consecutive victory over James Suvak in the Blair Academy vs. St Edward dual meet, this time a 3-0 decision at 195 pounds. Then, No. 14 Ty Walz countered for St. Edward with a 10-8 overtime result over David Farr. The Eagles led 13-12, which would be their last time on top for the evening. With No. 4 Greg Kuhar out of the lineup for St. Edward, No. 1 Brooks Black pinned Joe Belford, to give Blair Academy an 18-13 lead that they would hold for the rest of the dual meet.
The end of the script was at 106 pounds, where Jordan Kutler gave Blair a 21-13 lead after upending L.J. Bentley, 4-2, in what was thought to be a key swing match. Then, the dynamic changed at 113, with No. 3 Joey McKenna unable to make weight for Blair, as he weighed in for the 120 class. Senior Alex Moore came through for a pin for St. Edward against freshman Chaz Tucker to cut the deficit to 21-19.
McKenna wrestled for the Buccaneers at 120, and came up with a big 7-1 win over Colin Heffernan to make the score 24-19 Blair with two matches to go, where it was superstar on superstar. At 126 pounds, No. 2 Dean Heil came through for St. Edward with a 4-1 victory over No. 15 Max Hvolbek to set up a winner take all last match of the dual meet with potentially the national title on the line.
At 132 pounds, it would be the senior anchor of Blair Academy's team this year, No. 2 Mark Grey, going up against junior Edgar Bright, ranked No. 8 in the nation. The first period would end up scoreless in spite of the fact Bright was in very deep on an attempted cradle, was awarded the takedown, but it was then waived off. The official's decision being that takedown criteria was not met with time remaining on the clock, which would be one of many bones of contention in the post-mortem of this dual meet.
Grey chose down in the second period, got an escape to lead 1-0 headed into the third period. After Grey takes an injury timeout between periods, Bright chose the down position, and got an escape with about one minute remaining. The last minute of regulation and one minute of sudden victory would go scoreless, though Bright was controlling the pace and ties, and would have one takedown scoring opportunity negated due to the fact he was called out of bounds.
The match then goes to the :30-:30 tiebreaker situation. Bright chose down in the first tiebreaker. He stands up off the whistle, and gets into a scramble, where Grey neutralizes the situation and may have gotten it to near fall exposure, but the official stopped due to a potential injury for Bright. In the ending sequence of the first tiebreaker, the St. Edward coaching staff contests that there was a locking hands on Grey, but it's a moot point as it really wasn't there to be called.
Grey chooses down in the second portion of the tiebreaker, and promptly escapes. Then for the last twenty-plus seconds Bright is chasing after the go-ahead takedown, Grey does get hit for stalling once, but he fends it off and seals the deal for Blair. The Buccaneers win 27-22 and give themselves a significant advantage for the No. 1 position throughout the rest of the year.
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