MOUNT CARMEL - Hughesville may have only had a 1-4 record coming into Mount Carmel's opening dual meet, but in wrestling, records can be as deceiving as a Hollywood starlet caught with her makeup off.
The Spartans' four losses, all competitive, were to Benton, Pleasant Valley, Blue Mountain and Scranton, so it wasn't much of a surprise that they overcame a 30-15 deficit by winning the last five bouts to beat the Red Tornadoes 42-30 in each team's Pennsylvania Heartland Athletic Conference Division II opener Thursday.
The good news for Mount Carmel is that the Red Tornadoes look like they'll be able to field a whole lineup for most matches. The bad news is that a lot of the guys filling the weight classes are relatively inexperienced. Mount Carmel forfeited just one weight class, and the Spartans three but Hughesville had a 7-3 advantage in bouts actually wrestled.
"We're still very young. We covered the lineup tonight because of the way the forfeits went and the way their lineup is, but we're still pretty inexperienced," Mount Carmel coach Randy Reidler said. "Even when we bumped guys up, they were still wrestling pretty much at their weights."
Blake Panko (6-0) got the Red Tornadoes off to a good start by pinning Colton Kepner in the first period at 145. Hughesville then picked up three straight wins, highlighted by state runner-up Kyle Barnes' 100th career win, a pin over Tyler Wariki in 3:32.
Mount Carmel then picked up five straight wins, three by forfeit and a couple of closely contested decisions. Jordan Haq (195) decisioned Jacoby Foresman 3-2, fending off a late attempt by Foresman to turn him over, and Shane Gudonis (106) took a 9-5 win over Jake Snyder.
That gave Mount Carmel a 30-15 lead, but was the last win for the Tornadoes.
Hughesville picked up its only forfeit at 113. Zack Fry (120) pinned Brian Beaver, Devin Stahlnecker (126) decisioned Mitchell Fletcher 4-0, Houston Bryant (132) pinned first-year wrestler Cody Little and Eric Hiller pinned Tom Stief in 5:08 in the last match.
"We wrestled fairly well," Reidler said. "We made some mistakes which hurt. All of their kids had good frames and good technique. (Hughesville coach) Steve Boudman has them working hard."
Mount Carmel is off until Saturday, Dec. 29, when the Red Tornadoes host Southern Columbia at 1 p.m.
Meet Summary
Hughesville 42, Mount Carmel 30
145 - Blake Panko, MC, pinned Colton Kepner, 1:23 (6-0); 152 - Kyle Barnes, H, pinned Tyler Wariki, 3:32 (6-6); 160 - Matt Herr, H, dec. Zeke Zsido, 3-0 (6-9); 170 - Robert White, H, pinned Gabe Bogutskie, 1:32 (6-15); 182 - Dan Fletcher, MC, won by forfeit (12-15); 195 - Allen Yancoskie, MC, won by forfeit (18-15); 220 - Jordan Haq, MC, dec. Jacoby Foresman, 3-2 (21-15); 285 - Seth Stablewski, MC, won by forfeit (27-15); 106 - Shane Gudonis, MC, dec. Jake Snyder, 9-5 (30-15); 113 - Trevor Sones, H, won by forfeit (30-21); 120 - Zack Fry, H, pinned Brian Beaver, 2:25 (30-27); 126 - Devin Stahlnecker, H, dec. Mitchell Fletcher, 4-0 (30-30); 132 - Houston Bryant, pinned Cody Little, 2:57 (30-36); 138 - Eric Hiller, H, pinned Tom Stief, 5:08 (30-42)