Pennridge pulls away to beat Strath Haven in District 1-3A Duals first round

EAST ROCKHILL >> Pennridge’s Ryan Gallagher has finally started his junior wrestling season after working back from surgery last April to repair a torn labrum.

“I waited nine months just to come back to this sport,” he said. “And I’m so happy to be on this team and wrestling with this team again. This is my fourth match, I feel amazing.”

Gallagher put together an effort that definitely indicated that in the opening match of the Rams’ District 1-3A Dual Tournament first-round matchup with visiting Strath Haven Wednesday night.

Holding a 4-0 lead at the end of first period against the Panthers’ Andrew Reilley at 160 pounds, Gallagher grabbed further control in the second, extending his advantage to 11-1. Pushing for a technical fall in the third, Gallagher settled for four points in earning a 15-1 major decision.

“I was very anxious going into this match,” he said. “I had so much anxiety, well I was pacing for a solid 30 minutes before the match but it felt so good to start this match with a win and get my team going and that was the goal.”

After Talan Hogan’s pin at 172 put third-seeded Pennridge up 10-0, No. 14 Strath Haven picked up three straight victories to go ahead 13-10.

But when the meet flipped to the lighter weights, the Rams took over, winning seven of the last eight – four by pin along with a match-clinching tech fall by Sam Kuhns at 139 – in pulling away to advance with a 48-16 victory.

“When we kind of mapped it we knew we’d have trouble in those upper weight class (matches) – they got a great 89-pounder, a great heavyweight, 215’s really good,” Rams coach Brian Kuhns said. “I think we could’ve probably taken one or two of those but we wrestled really tough against those three, especially from where we started at, those kids are used to being later in the match.

“We were confident, after that went through, we were confident in our lightweight (wrestlers), we were confident where we could make that run and take the momentum back.”

The Rams reach the district quarterfinals for the second straight season with the remainder of the tournament on Saturday, Feb. 4 at Upper Dublin. Duals are set to begin at 8:30 a.m. with four teams advancing for the PIAA-3A Team Championship.

Pennridge faces No. 6 Quakertown – a 37-28 winner over No. 11 Perkiomen Valley – for the second time this season, having knocked off the Panthers 37-32 Dec. 21.

“They got bad blood from it but we just got to wrestle our style,” Rams junior Anthony Granite said. “We didn’t have a couple of our wrestlers that week and we still ended up taking that one. I’m pretty confident going into that one, I had a really tough match in that match but we’ll see.”

Gallagher suffered the torn labrum as a freshman and continued to compete despite the injury through his sophomore season – Gallagher saying that was “legitimately biggest regret of my life” – before finally having surgery on it in April.

He returned to the Rams’ lineup last Friday, picking up a pair of decisions in a tri-meet with host Pennsbury and Central Bucks South then had a pin Tuesday as Pennridge topped Central Bucks West.

“Mentally it was a lot harder than physically,” Gallagher said. “Physically I feel amazing right now and I worked for what I got. I worked hard and I worked to be where I’m at. I was at 200 pounds at one point – I’m wrestling 160 now.

“I feel amazing but mentally the injury just messed me up last year. I wrestled not the same as I was last year. I’m a different person this year and I want to show everyone that I am the best, I will be the best.”

Seniors Sam Milligan and Ben Farabaugh, who both qualified for states last season, helped Strath Haven erase a 10-0 deficit to claim its only lead of the night.

Milligan put the Panthers on the scoreboard by pinning Ryan Rowe at 3:02 at 189. Anthony Crawford followed with a 14-9 decision over Riley Cullen pulled the Panthers within 10-9 while Farabaugh recorded a 10-1 major decision at 285 against Chase Washington to give the visitors a three-point edge.

Cole Meenan, however, put Pennridge back ahead for good at 107 with a pin in a minute at 107 over Jess Lin. Colby Martinelli extended the margin to 22-13, pinning Olivier Kennedy in 30 seconds at 114. Cole Coffin’s forfeit win at 121 made it 28-13.

Noah Romanowski stopped the Rams’ run, the Haven senior earning a 6-4 decision at 127 over Danny Metzler but Granite, bumped up a weight to 133, followed with a 10-5 decision over Sam Harrington at 133 to put Pennridge up 31-16.

“He works so hard, I feel like he’s very close to having one of those huge leaps higher,” said Kuhns of Granite. “And really tonight kind of gets that confidence in him. And that’s what I told him before the match, you’re a stud, you could beat all these kids, you go out and wrestle your style and he did.”

Granite and Harrington were even 3-3 after the first period and still knotted at five apiece in the second before Granite scored a reversal then a three-point near fall to take a 10-5 lead.

“Second period, I felt really strong,” Granite said. “I felt like after the first he kind of broke and after I got that near fall, I really thought I had him pinned but you can’t get them all so it was you kind of just had to keep working, keep scoring. But yeah that win felt really good.”

Sam Kuhns sealed the Rams’ spot in the quarters at 139 with his 20-5 tech fall over Ben Milligan in 5:26. Pennridge added 12 more points in the last two matches with pins by Brady McMahon at 145 and Gio Iadonisi at 152.