Downingtown West Takes 3rd at Parkland Duals

Parkland (PA), Saturday, January 14, 2006

Downingtown West Wrestling took third place at the Parkland Duals. They went 3-1 for the day. The sole loss was against Connellsville, last year’s AAA Dual Meet State Champions. The match with Connellsville was the first of the morning. Downingtown did not let their first loss of the season get to them. They went on to beat Parkland (34-30), Blue Mountain (43-24) and Pennridge (58-14).

The second match of the day was against Parkland, the host of the tournament. The highlight of the match was that of the heavyweights. The score was 30-28 in Parklands favor. Alex Bause, with the pressure of a team win or loss on his shoulders, pinned his opponent at 5:10 to give Downingtown the victory with the final score of 34-30. Another match to note was the very physical battle between Joe DeGaravilla against Maher Kholi, with Joey winning 5-2.

The third match of the day was against Blue Mountain. They started by giving the Whippets two forfeits and Downingtown ended up winning 43-24. The most impressive bout was Chris Kalbach. He hurt his ankle and wrestled limping for almost two minutes winning the decision 5-3. Good luck Chris! D.J. Evans had an especially hard match and came out on top 3-0.

The final match, for third place was against D-1 Pennridge with the Whippets winning 58-14. The two highlight matches were at 145 and 215. At 145 Steve Rathfon lost to Ed Geib 3-4 in a very close, hard six minutes of wrestling. Nojan Zomorrodian, at 215, used an escape and a take down to beat Will Goldenberg 3-2 in another tight match. A Whippet milestone was reached when Sophomore Pat May picked up his 50th career victory.

All in all, not a bad day. Robert Akers, Pat May, DJ Evans and Joe DeGaravilla went 4-0 for the day. Several other wrestlers lost a few close ones to some pretty tough competition. Downingtown West’s record is now 1-0 League, 7-0 vs D-1 teams and 13-1 for the season!