BUCKTOWN -- They've already seen a lot of each other this winter.
Three times in little more than a month, to be exact. And coming out of that extensive exposure, Boyertown is establishing a dominance over Owen J. Roberts even with the possibility of several more encounters this season.
"We have seen a lot of each other,' Boyertown head coach Pete Ventresca admitted Wednesday, following the teams' Pioneer Athletic Conference dual in Owen J's Wildcat Gymnasium. "We saw them at our duals, and we'll probably see them in district duals.
"They generally end up being hard-nosed matches.'
But from their latest go-round, the Bears came away with a 40-16 victory. They did it by taking all but three of the first 11 bouts, getting a pair of pins, one technical fall and two major decisions to leave the Wildcats again on the short side of the score.
Boyertown (3-0 league, 9-0 overall) did it with a lineup that looked considerably different from the schools' first clash - the championship match of Boyertown's Brian Bealer Memorial Bear Duals the first weekend of the season - and their visit to Central Mountain's "King of the Mountain' tournament a week later. People shifting into accustomed, and required, weight classes made it a more-solidified entity than the one that topped Roberts 34-25 the first day of the season schedule.
"The guys needed to go where the coaches need them to go to give us the best outcome,' Bear junior Gregg Harvey said afterward.
Harvey himself was the subject of a weight-class shift, going down to 182 from the 195-pound bracket in which he started the year. He recorded one of the team's majors on the night, using the sport's version of a "catch-and-release' strategy to run up a 15-6 win on Connor Mitchell.
"The coaches needed me to score, so I did what the coaches asked,' Harvey (18-4) said about the 11-5 point differential he posted over the second and third periods. "Everyone on the team does what the coaches ask. That's what everyone needs to do.'
Harvey's "major' staked Boyertown to a 22-7 lead midway through the card, which started at 132. The Bears' earlier points came from J.T. Cooley's 7-1 decision in the opener, Chris Berry's third-period pin at 138 and Dylan Wertz's 7-3 decision at 170.
Boyertown got another six at 152, where Elijah Jones was the recipient of an injury default by OJR's Drew Gerber. They were tied at 2-2 when Gerber injured his knee at the 4:31 mark and was unable to continue.
"We have a couple kids battling for position,' Ventresca noted, "but we have a pretty consistent idea of knowing where they will be.'
The Wildcats (1-1, 5-2) were only able to counter in that stretch with Demetri D'Orsaneo's major at 145 and Dominick Petrucelli's three-point verdict at 160. They got other decisions from Xavier Ferrizzi at 195, Ryan Resnick at 113 and Derek Gulotta at 120 ... but not enough to stop Boyertown from getting the match clincher at 106, Jakob Campbell's major staking his team to a 35-10 lead with three weights left.
"They have tough kids at every weight,' OJR head coach Steve DeRafelo said, citing injury issues his team was facing, "and they wrestle tough tournaments. We got handled.
"They won it on the edge of the mats, scoring points at the end of periods. We want to go to battle with all our weapons, but this time they outwrestled us.'
Ventresca also praised several of his wrestlers who battled Owen J. standouts even while coming up short on the scoreboard. He mentioned David Campbell, who was edged by OJR's Ryan Resnick (14-4) in a 2-1 duel, and Garrett Mauger falling to Derek Gulotta at 120, 8-5.
"That was quite an effort by Mauger against a three-time state medalist,' Ventresca said. "We have kids who wrestle hard right to the end. I love that about the kids ... it makes me proud to see them do that.'
NOTES
Tommy Killoran had the night's fastest pin, the Boyertown junior recording a first-period drop at 285. ... Lucas Miller closed out the Bears' scoring with a technical fall in the 126-pound finale. ... The Bears and Wildcats will cross paths again the weekend of Jan. 17-18, when they travel to Council Rock South for the renowned Escape From The Rock tournament. "We're really looking forward to it,' Harvey said of the program's first-ever appearance there. "We're expecting good competition.'
