North Penn’s Reyes comes through with pin in tight contest with CB West

TOWAMENCIN >> It was simple for Angel Reyes.

With the North Penn wrestling team trailing Central Bucks West by four points entering the final match of Wednesday night’s SOL Colonial Division dual meet, Reyes had to come through in the clutch.

“I knew what I had to do for the team,” Reyes said. “I knew it was, at the end of the day, I was the only one who could put the points up on the board. It’s what it came down to – I had to do what I had to do.”

The senior Knight delivered in his 145-pound match with Jacob Hooven, coming close to a pin in the first period before finally recording a fall in the second at 2:44.

That should have clinched the victory for North Penn but that is where things got a bit complicated.

The Knights, still displeased from what they saw as an illegal headlock in West’s pin at 139, were dinged for unsportsmanlike conduct following the meet’s final match. It was unclear whether NP was docked just once – leaving them still the victors at 35-34 – or twice, result of the later a 34-34 draw and visiting CB West claiming the win via the tiebreaker of fewer unsportsmanlike deductions.

The final result, per pa-wrestling.com has North Penn coming away with the 35-34 win.

“I’m not even sure (the result) yet but I’m proud of the way our guys wrestled,” Bucks first-year coach Dylan Schwartz said. “We bumped everyone up to see if we could win this dual and I think we wrestled pretty well.”

It was an indecisive result to a meet that began with North Penn winning six of the first seven matches to build a 31-6 lead before the Bucks rallied back by taking the next five – Mallon’s pin of Ryan Brown in 3:51 at 139 giving West its first lead 34-31. North Penn implored for an illegal headlock to no avail, while an unsportsmanlike deduction left the Knights down 34-30.

“It’s the ref’s decision, whatever happens, happens,” Schwartz said. “It’s how we go with it. We wrestle hard until the ref stops us.”

That left North Penn needing bonus points to pull out a win and Reyes proceeded to earn six with his second-period pin for his sixth victory of the season, five of those coming by fall.

“I’m not entirely sure, it was all kind of a blur at the moment,” said Reyes of the pin. “I just saw red cause I was mad that Ryan got messed over. But I think I just worked in a half, that’s what our coach always drill into us, be the stronger, be harder, be more dominant. Always got to drive, if you’re working harder you’re going to win it at the end of the day.”

Both teams wrestle at events Saturday – Central Bucks West is at the Denver Duals at Cocalico High School while North Penn competes at the Quakertown Duals.

“Although we may have lost or tied on paper, I still think tonight was a win,” North Penn senior Sheamus Moloney said. “We got the win kind of stripped from us from the ref but as a team I think we wrestled hard.

North Penn opened Wednesday’s meet with back-to-back pins to jump out to a 12-0 advantage. Will Mayland pinned Caden Fitzpatrick in 2:50 at 152 while Brayden Shannon followed with a fall in 2:15 against Jeff Mullin at 160.

“We got off to a great start,” Moloney said. “I knew it was going to be a close match cause we got some younger guys on the beginning half of our lineup, the lighter guys, some of them are really young.”

After Quinton Laughlin’s 9-3 decision at 172, Moloney pushed the Knights’ lead to 19-0 with his 12-0 major decision at 189.

“Could always do better,” said Moloney, who improved to 13-7. ‘I’d rather pin the kid than get a major decision, that’s two more team points I could’ve gotten, would’ve saved us the match.”

Sebastian Green gave CB West its first win with a pin in 2:18 at 215 but Devon Pinkett answered for North Penn at 285, recording a fall in just eight seconds. A forfeit win at 107 gave the Knights a 31-6 lead.

Riess Decembrino began West’s run of fifth straight wins at 114, the freshman – in his second varsity match – fought off being pinned before earning a fall with five seconds left in the first period.

“We knew we were going to give up some points early,” Schwartz said. “I wish we didn’t give up a couple of those pins the first couple matches. But we know our light weights usually carry us and that’s what happened today.”

After a forfeit win at 121, Chris Dennis pulled CB West to within 31-24 with his pin in 26 seconds at 126.

Patrick Kelly’s 9-0 major decision at 133 cut the margin to three with the Bucks grabbing the lead on Mallon’s pin at 139.