January 29, 2011|By Sandra McKee, The Baltimore Sun
After two postponements for snow, No. 1 Archbishop Spalding and No. 2 McDonogh finally met Saturday afternoon in the Eagles gym. Nearly two hours later, Spalding emerged with a historic 33-24 victory over its Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference rivals.
"It's the first time we've ever beaten them," said Cavaliers coach Mike Laidley, who figures the losing streak had stretched back at least 15 years. "It goes back to when Spalding first fielded a boys wrestling team. We're very excited about winning."
McDonogh (10-8) was ready for the 27-0 Cavaliers, as the match went down to the final weight class. Eagles coach Pete Welch moved some of his wrestlers up in weight class trying to find a way to give his team a better chance for victory.
"It was a close match," said Laidley. "I thought we could have beaten them by a wider spread, but they bumped their wrestlers up and they did a good job competing."
McDonogh's star freshman Jack Clark got an initial technical fall, 19-3, to put the Eagles up 5-0. But Spalding won the next three matches to take a 12-3 lead. The Cavaliers stretched it to 21-11 before the Eagles came back to within a point at 21-20, when Roman Braglio earned a 5-1 decision at 215, where he gave up at least 35 pounds to Spalding's Malik Johnson.
"I tried hard to pin him," said Braglio, who couldn't get Johnson in position for a pin until the moment the bell rang to end their match. "But I wanted to make sure I was going to get the win first and then go for the pin. You have to rely on all your teammates to get the job done and that's what we all did."
Braglio said McDonogh was not aware that Spalding's win was its first ever over the Eagles.
"That probably makes it worse," he said. "In my match, if I'd gotten a pin or if in another match one of their guys hadn't gotten a pin, we could have won. But it didn't go that way."
Welch's strategy of moving his 160-, 171-, 189- and 215-pound wrestlers all up a weight class worked out in part. Travis Wood won 5-2 at 160, and Kevin Marvel pinned his opponent at 215 in 54 seconds, but Spalding's Devaunje Smith won a tight match, 3-2, at 171, and Kavaunte Smith pinned Matt Barranco in just 54 seconds at 189.
Spalding also got quick pins from Michael Still at 103 in 44 seconds, and nationally ranked Charlie Lynch at 145 in 56 seconds.
In the end it came down to a match between two freshmen — Spalding's Logan Breitenbach and McDonogh's Bobby Twigg — at 125 pounds in the last match of the night.
"Those are two very good, accomplished freshman," said Welch. "Anything could have happened."
Twigg got the early takedown, but Breitenbach came back quickly and ended up earning a hard-fought, 6-3 victory.
"I was thinking it could come down to my match," said Breitenbach. "And I was ready. But I didn't wrestle differently. He came out fast and took me down first, but I knew he couldn't stay with me and that we'd win. We were really excited about this match because we'd never beaten McDonogh. And it was close for a little while because a couple guys didn't wrestle to their ability. But overall, we did really, really well."
