Wilson downs short-handed Boone

Ryan McMillan's eight-second fall at 215 clinches the Bulldogs' 41-27 victory

Even though Daniel Boone is struggling to get its best team on the wrestling mat, Wilson figured it might have its hands full for Wednesday’s Berks I match.

So Ryan McMillan quickly took care of any comeback hopes the Blazers had as Wilson defeated visiting Daniel Boone 41-27 in a rematch of last year’s Berks County championship match won by Wilson.

McMillian scored an eight-second fall at 215 pounds to give Wilson an insurmountable lead with two bouts left in its first dual meet of the season.

“We knew that they wanted to come in and give it to us,” McMillan said. “We beat them in their home gym last year so we knew they’d want to come in and beat us in ours. We knew what we had to do.”

The Bulldogs (1-0, 1-0) received three forfeits as the short-handed Blazers (1-2, 1-2) juggled their lineup to get their best matchups. But it wasn’t enough to prevent the defending division champion Blazers from suffering their second division loss.

“We don’t have enough of the horses right now,” said Daniel Boone coach Jim Hogan. “We had to make some moves tonight to try to win the dual meet. We felt moving everybody up one weight class was going to help us out.”

But that meant forfeiting the first two bouts, at 113 and 120, to give Wilson a 12-0 lead before the first match was wrestled.

Wilson forfeited two bouts but won five of the eight contested bouts to begin a stretch of six league matches in 21 days, including three on consecutive days from Jan. 17-19.

“I knew it was going to a close dual meet,” said Wilson coach Jason Gibble. “They do give some forfeits but their whole team is pretty tough.”

Wilson got falls from Blaise Eidle at 152 and McMillian. The Bulldogs also won a pair of tossup matches with Matteo Garcia winning 6-4 at 172 and Logan Kurzweg winning a 3-1 overtime decision at 285 over Colin Leahy, who was making his season debut after missing December due to a football injury.

Aiden Dojan also had a technical fall at 132 for the Bulldogs.

For Daniel Boone, Tucker Hogan scored a 25-second fall at 189 and Gavin Richard scored a fall at 126. Brett Marchiano earned a 4-1 decision at 145 for Daniel Boone’s only other contested win.

But it was McMillan who put a quick exclamation point on Wilson’s 2021-22 dual meet debut.

“They told me before if I pinned we’d get the win, so that’s all I had in my mind when I went out there,” McMillian said. “I didn’t want to waste any time fooling around.”