Published: 2/4/2016 6:25 AM
DANVILLE — Preston Rogers survived a major scare in the second period and made the most of it with an overtime win that helped turn the momentum for Towanda in Wednesday’s District 4 Class AA Duals atDanville High School.
The freshman’s gutsy performance, resulting in an 8-6 sudden-victory decision, gave the Black Knights a 24-9 win and led them to a 55-9 win in the first round of the tournament. Towanda moves to Saturday’s semifinals at Milton High School on Saturday to face No. 2 seed Wyalusing.
Wyalusing won the previous meeting this season 43-24.
Rogers was looking up at the lights, locked in a cradle by Danville seniorLiam Brady and, to say the least, things did not look good for Rogers.
He admitted later that he was on the verge of signaling for injury time, which would have added another point to the three-point nearfall by Brady.
But Rogers worked his way out of it and then got a reversal at the buzzer to pull within 5-4. Brady took neutral in the third period, and took Brady down to his back, but penalized for a full nelson, which sent the bout into the one-minute sudden-victory period tied at 6.
With just 24 seconds left, Rogers scored a takedown in a flurry at the edge of the mat for an 8-6 victory giving No. 10 seed Towanda a 24-9 lead en route to a 59-9 first-round win.
“I was just trying to hold on as long as I could,” Rogers said of his second-period predicament.
He also said getting out of that situation gave him the confidence he needed to pull out the win. “I thought if I could last that part of the match I knew I could win it.”
Towanda coach Bill Sexton said that, in addition to his team’s winning all the close bouts, including two overtimes, “I thought (113) was a real turning point in terms of momentum.”
Of the winning takedown, Rogers said, “It was just one of those scrambles that could go either way and I tried to fight for the win. It was still a close match and I thought we needed a win.”
Sam Crone and Jarrett Walters got Danville out of an early hole and provided some hope for the home fans at Whitey McCloskey Gymnasium.
But, after a forfeit loss at 106 pounds sandwiched by a pair of overtime losses, Towanda got on a roll.
After the two Danville wins at 195 and 220 pounds, the No. 7 seeded Ironmen (15-4) had pulled to within 12-9 after five bouts.
But Towanda (16-4) got a lift from 285-pounder Mitchell Peters, who spun behind Darien Yeager with 35 seconds left in the sudden-victory overtime period for a 3-1 decision to make it 15-9. The Ironmen then forfeited as their 106-pounder,Dylan Spotts, was absent because of a death in the family.
After the dramatic win by Rogers, Towanda followed with a major decision by Nate Secules at 120 and five pins to put the win in the books. Secules hit a double-leg takedown with eight seconds left to get the bonus points.
“That was a good win out of Secules,” Sexton said, adding, “Then my two freshmen (Noah Shafer and Logan Johnson) at 126 and 132, they’ve been struggling this year, but they’ve wrestled hard and it was good to see them pick up two key falls that put the match away for us.”
The other Towanda pinners were David Knolles (138), Steven Yates (145) and Dayton Wickwire (170).
Danville coach Matt Bloom said, “Going back to the (first two bouts) 160- and 170-pound matches, those were key matches and it’s a Bill Sexton-coached team, they don’t make mistakes.”
He said his team appeared sluggish, a bad combination with the aggressive style of the Black Knights, who had a 17-4 advantage in takedowns.
Towanda got off to a 12-0 start on a 7-0 decision by Brycen Fulmer at 160, a 3-minute fall by Dayton Wickwire at 170 and a 2-1 decision by Clay Mosier at 182.
Crone, ranked No. 13 in the state in Class AA by Off the Mat, got the Ironmen on the board. Crone scored a single leg takedown in the first period, but gave up a threepoint nearfall on a cradle by Joe Koss in the second.
After Koss chose the bottom for the third period, Crone rolled him and tilted him for a pair of three-pointers to pull out an 8-3 decision to improve to 24-3.
Walters (24-2), a junior, followed by making quick work of Mike Johnson, taking him down early and then pinning him in 51 seconds with an arm bar.
Demonstrating how tight the meet could have been at the midway point, Yeager came close to scoring what would have been the winning takedown late in regulation before the overtime loss to Peters.
Sexton knows the Knights are looking at an uphill battle in their rematch with Wyalusing, but he said, “We’ll show up and wrestle hard and hopefully we can do something to make the match closer and give us a chance to be in it. I have a lot of confidence in what we can do.”