by Tom Utescher

In wrestling, pins and forfeits each put six points on the board in the team scoring, but last Friday Germantown Academy profited from some garden variety three-point decisions.

In the final dual meet of the Inter-Ac League season, the visiting Patriots wound up in a 36-36 tie with the host Blue Devils of Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. The official tiebreaking process would favor the team with the most total victories in individual matches. SCH scored its 36 points through one pin and five forfeits, but the Pats would be declared the official victors due to their eight victories: two pins, two forfeits, and four wins by decision.

At this stage of the season, this might well have been Senior Day for the host Blue Devils, but this winter they have no seniors at all on the roster, and only two active juniors.

“We’re mostly a team of sophomores and freshman, and I think you saw some of that youth come out today in some close matches that didn’t go our way,” observed first-year SCH head coach Ed Dingley. “Still, we showed some progress by losing on a tiebreaker to a team that beat us pretty handily last year.”

With the victory, Germantown Academy (which also has a first-year mentor in Zach Doll) secured third place in the league with a 3-2 record that included other wins over Penn Charter and Episcopal Academy, and losses to Haverford School and dominant repeat champion Malvern Prep.

SCH, which had also defeated Episcopal, wound up fifth with a mark of 1-4. Last Friday the Blue Devils wrestled a doubleheader, having picked up a non-league meet with Phil-Mont Christian Academy that took place just after the official Inter-Ac contest.

Phil-Mont only had five official entries, so the second half of the twin bill proceeded quickly. There were double forfeits at two weight classes, and forfeits in seven other categories by the visiting Falcons. SCH won the five matches that were decided out on the mat, recording four pins and a victory by technical fall for a 71-0 final score in the brief encounter.

In a reversal of the scenario seen in past seasons, in the Inter-Ac contest GA actually forfeited more matches than Springside Chestnut Hill last Friday.

“The first thing we wanted to do was fill out the weight classes, since that’s been a problem in the past,” noted Dingley, who was an assistant coach for the Blue Devils prior to taking over the top job. “My first goal this year was to get our numbers up.”

One of GA’s senior stalwarts was recovering from surgery, and two younger Patriots were out sick on Friday.

At the starting weight of 152 lbs., the only point scored in the first two periods came on an escape by GA sophomore Mike Roman. Starting on the bottom for the third round, SCH 10th grader Matt Greenberg leveled the score with an escape. Greenberg then shot for a takedown, but Roman turned it around on him. The GA grappler was awarded a takedown with 52 seconds remaining and secured a 3-1 decision.

At 160 lbs., SCH forfeited to Germantown sophomore Drew Sandifer, and GA handed six points back to the Blue Devils at 170 lbs., where junior Grant Dalsemer received the windfall. Up at 182, a pair of takedowns had Patriots 10th-grader Patrick Salmon leading SCH junior Michael Spirito, 4-1, at the end of the second period. Salmon scored the lone point of the third round by escaping at the start of the period, and his 5-1 decision moved the visitors to a 12-6 lead in the team score.

In the 195 lb. class, GA junior Dan Smith held just a 2-1 edge over SCH sophomore Sean Edling at the end of the first two minutes, but the scoreboard got more of a workout after that. A stalling penalty point, an escape, and a takedown had Smith up 6-1 after the second period, and the visiting 11th-grader got two more takedowns in the third round. Several escapes by Edling figured into a 10-3 decision for the Patriots.

Next, there was another exchange of forfeits; GA senior Kwasi Ampomah got a free pass at 220 lbs., and the same applied to SCH sophomore Sean McCann at 285.

Moving to the light end of the scale, the Pats’ 106-pouinder, Mark Fasciocco, quickly took down fellow freshman Simon Kioko. He then proceeded to pile up near-fall points until he led 12-0 at the end of the first period. Fasciocco ended the bout early in the second round with a pin, and Germantown now led the meet, 27-12.

The fourth of GA’s victories by decision came at 113 lbs. courtesy of sophomore Brandon Seidman. After he scored an initial takedown, points were hard to come by, but at the end of two rounds he was still ahead of Blue Devils freshman Luke Purcell, 3-1.

Escaping from the bottom at the beginning of the third stanza, Purcell cut his deficit to a single point. Seidman secured a takedown to pad his lead, then Purcell escaped to get back within two points, 5-3. Struggling for a late takedown, the pair tumbled out of bounds with 19 seconds to go. The clock then ran out without any further scoring.

What would be Germantown Academy’s final individual victory of the meet was engineered by 120 lb. senior Brian Jamison. Facing a less experienced opponent in SCH eighth-grader Marco Goldberg, Jamison used two takedowns to build up a 6-1 lead over the first two periods.

Off a neutral start in the third, Jamison got another takedown about half-a-minute in, and was then able to nail down a pin with 57 seconds remaining.

The Blue Devils were down 36-12 after that one, but they quickly got back in the hunt thanks to a pair of Patriot forfeits. Accepting the points for SCH were sophomores Jordan Bell (126 lbs.) and Kyle Williams (132), and the team tally closed up to 36-24.

Next, there was a 138 lb. match that was literally a rough-and-tumble clash. Some aggressive takedowns by Blue Devils sophomore Myles Hugee resulted in several injury time-outs called on behalf of GA senior Trey DeGeorge. Finally, with Hugee leading 13-5 more than halfway through the third period, another effusion of blood caused the match to be ended and SCH won by default.

After those six points went up on the home side of the score board, GA forfeited at the final weight class. The hosts’ Andrew Kramer, a 10th-grader, pocketed the points at 145 lbs., leveling the team score at 36-36 and setting the stage for GA’s victory by tiebreaker.

In the meet against Phil-Mont that followed, SCH got pins from freshman Ehson Shirazi at 138 lbs., Kramer at 145, Spirito at 170, and Edling at 182. In the other match where actual wrestling occurred, Williams churned out a technical fall, achieving a 19-4 lead with an escape in the third period.

Coach Dingley has been encouraged by the results of his first season as SCH skipper. He noted that the team leaders include not only the junior captain, Spirito, but some younger wrestlers, as well.

“Sean Edling and Luke Purcell are guys who always come in and work hard and don’t get fazed by challenging situations,” the coach related. “Probably our biggest surprise this year was our eighth-grader, Marco Goldberg, who’s already got the mentality of a sophomore or junior. He’s not scared of anybody, he just goes out and wrestles. It’s the mindset I’d like to see all our guys have; no matter how important the match and how intense the situation, you go out and wrestle the same way, with the goal of putting the other guy on his back.”