HERSHEY>> Exeter head coach Jon Rugg doesn’t pay any mind to talk about his Eagles being the flagship wrestling program in Berks County.
But it would be hard to argue against the proposition.
Exeter sent four wrestlers to the Class AAA finals at Saturday’s final two rounds of the District 3 championships, held at Hersheypark Arena. The Eagles came away with a pair of gold medal winners in Austin Desanto at 130 and Brett Kulp at 132.
Dennis Karas (195) and Owen Daniels (285) also wrestled for gold but came up just short — in Daniels’ case, nearly at the buzzer.
If that wasn’t enough, Rugg, in his seventh season as Exeter’s head coach, was named as District 3-AAA Coach of the Year during the proceedings.
But no, he doesn’t consider the geographical slant. At all.
“It’s kind of a weird question because I never think of it,” Rugg said, when asked whether he thought his program is the current flagship in Berks. “I never look at it like that. I just think about how we can keep improving day-to-day, year-to-year. The last several years we’ve had a good group of kids coming up through, and it doesn’t start here. It starts in fourth, fifth, sixth grade and it shows how hard they’ve been working.”
Kulp’s gold at 132, a 2-1 victory, was the most dramatic. He trailed Central Dauphin’s Andrew Wert 1-0, with 15 seconds left in the bout, when he was able to pull off a reversal for a last-gasp win.
“We went out-of-bounds and I knew I was down one with short time left,” Kulp said. “I knew I had to give it one last flurry. We got back to center, I stood up real quick and I turned in and hooked his leg, and I came in under his arms and started to lock the cradle and the ref gave me the reversal.
“Andrew’s a great wrestler and I knew it was going to be a tough match. We wrestled hard and it just ended up in my favor.”
It was Kulp’s second D-3 title in three seasons; he won as a sophomore, then lost to CD’s Tyshaun White in overtime last year. White, incidentally, won his fourth straight district crown Saturday, at 126, with an 8-3 win over Shippensburg’s Chandler Olson.
Desanto’s win at 120 came against New Oxford’s Zurich Storm by a 13-6 score. Desanto won comfortably — he jumped out to a 5-0 lead not 30 seconds into the bout — but he was not interested in today’s result. His sites are focused strictly ahead, toward a bigger stage.
“I work for the end of the year, which is states,” Desanto said. “And that’s the end goal, to win one of those. This doesn’t really mean anything at all. This means that states is getting closer. This tells me what I still need to work on.”
Daniels was locked in a 2-2 duel at 285 with Northeastern’s Blaine Yinger as the third period drew to a close when Yinger was awarded two points and with it, the heavyweight title, as the clock expired. Daniels was forthright in defeat.
“He scored, he got in better position than me,” Daniels said. “Honestly, I thought he had two (points) five seconds prior, before the buzzer. I was on my butt, he had both of my legs wrapped. They should have called it five seconds prior. They just called it late.”
Karas, a 7-5 loser to Penn Manor’s Jesse Kann at 195, led his bout 5-2 late in the second period before Kann rallied in the third.
Wyomissing’s Robert Dunbar took the Class AA crown at 285, the only Berks wrestler not from Exeter to escape Hersheypark Arena with gold.
Dunbar clipped Northern Lebanon heavyweight George Thompson, 2-1, for the title, riding out the closing seconds in a tightly contested match. Thompson was dinged by officials for stalling twice, providing the margin of victory for Wyo’s big man.
“I had a 2-0 lead with about 25 seconds left when he tried to cut in for a reversal,” Dunbar said, “and I stalled out the final seconds for the win.
“This feels phenomenal. … Last year, I lost here in a close match. I worked hard all offseason for this.”
