Archbishop Wood rolls past McDevitt in PCL opener

CHELTENHAM >> The sentiment echoed by both coaches after Wednesday night’s lopsided Philadelphia Catholic League wrestling match between the Bishop McDevitt and Archbishop Wood was that both teams were looking and building toward the postseason.

While most of the matches actually ended in forfeits, Wood collected all but one victory in earning a 73-6 win.

“We’re building for the end of the year,” Archbishop Wood coach Vic Stanley said. “I care about wins and losses but we really (care) about the end of the year stuff.”

The lone McDevitt win on the night came 170 pounds as Chris Jorgii pinned Xavier Pomrink with 41 seconds remaining in the first period.

Outside of the bout at 170, it was all Wood as many Vikings took the meet as an opportunity to wrestle at different weights and try different moves. The Vikes got some nice performances turned in by Max Shaffer at 106, Austin Gillick, wrestling up at 145, and Matt Palage, who also wrestled up at 152.

The lineup for McDevitt was young. The Royal Lancers had more freshmen in their starting lineup than any of the other three classes combined. Because of having a young lineup many of the Lancers were making their first career varsity start in a duel meet.

“I thought our guys wrestled great tonight, we didn’t get all the end results but they wrestled really well,” Bishop McDevitt coach Chris Whelan said. “We know what we need to work on, we’re going to be better in February when the postseason starts and I think a lot of those results will get turned around from now until then.”

Looking to exploit the young McDevitt wrestlers, Wood attacked the Lancers early in the match, getting after them from the opening whistle.

“We definitely told our guys to go out tonight and do things they were a little uncomfortable doing,” Wood assistant coach Chris Meister said. “We said take those extra shots when you don’t feel like you want to and try to get out of the urge to wrestle safe. We wanted them to wrestle more open.”

The good news for McDevitt is it had reinforcements coming. Because of the lengthy playoff run the football team recently completed, the Lancers will have four more wrestlers that will become eligible to wrestle in the near future.

“I told the kids, I can teach technique, we can go back and watch video and fix mistakes, the only thing a coach can’t teach is effort and every kid gave effort tonight,” Whelan said. “Our football team made it so far into the state playoffs that a lot of our guys got late starts, we actually have (about four) more kids on the team than were eligible to wrestle tonight.”