A deafening silence descended over the North Carroll gymnasium last night moments after Francis Scott Key walked off the mat with a 38-27 victory over the Panthers.
The North Carroll faithful seemed to sense that a longtime high school wrestling dynasty was in trouble.
The third-ranked Eagles had put a major dent in the armor of the seventh-ranked Panthers.
It was Key coach Bill Hyson's turn to bask in the spotlight for one of the few times in his 15 years of coaching against North Carroll. It has been five years since Key won a dual match against North Carroll, and Hyson has yet to beat the Panthers in the Carroll County tournament.
"I'm not going to comment on us being the new dynasty," said Hyson. "But I will say this sure puts to rest all of what happened to us two years ago [tough 31-24 loss at North Carroll] and all the other times we've been close without winning. We can put that behind us now."
To show how sweet a night it was for Hyson, he requested that all his wrestlers ride home on the bus.
"This is a big night, let's enjoy it together," he said.
The only thing that dampened the Key celebration was the fact that the Eagles (12-1, 3-1 in the county) most likely will have to settle for being county dual-match tri-champions.
North Carroll (10-3, 3-1) and Key have finished their county schedule with 3-1 records, and eighth-ranked South Carroll (11-1, 2-1) is heavily favored to wind up 3-1 with a win over Liberty Wednesday.
"We don't like to share the title with anyone," said Key 171-pounder Robert Buntin. "But we'll just go out and beat everybody in the county tournament [Feb. 11 at North Carroll]."
Key would have won the dual-match title outright if it had not been upset by South Carroll, 37-31, last week.
"That was a bizarre match," said Buntin. "We had a lot of things go wrong."
It was Buntin who nearly clinched the match last night for the Eagles when he suddenly caught Colin Eutsler and pinned him at 5:35 of their 171-pound bout.
Eutsler was hanging tough against Buntin and was only down, 2-0, with 25 seconds left when Buntin struck quickly for the pin.
Before the Buntin pin, Francis Scott Key was clinging to a 26-21 lead and North Carroll was hoping to stay close before the last two bouts.
But the Panthers were down quickly, 32-21, and needed two pins to win the match.
North Carroll coach Bryan Wetzel then had to scrap his game plan of sending Bill Beltz and Jeremy Britton out at 189 and heavyweight classes, respectively.
Instead, he had to gamble with Brian Seabrease at 189 and Beltz in the heavyweight bout.
Seabrease had not been on the mat too much in recent weeks and wound up getting pinned by Key's Bobby Bollinger at 3:33.
Wetzel said: "We were expecting at least to get a win at 171 but Colin just got caught after there was a questionable hold in the bout. But I'm not using that as an excuse. Our wrestlers were intense and ready to go. There were two good teams going at it and one had to lose.
"We thought Dameon [Davis] would win at 119 but it didn't happen [Ryan Etzler won by a major decision, 10-2]. Now we have to come back strong against Thomas Johnson and get ready for the county tournament."
Two-time Key state champion Randy Owings, who scored a major decision (10-1) over Gene Phillips, said: "It's sure good to get out of here with one victory over North Carroll before I graduate."
Owings, Zac Yinger and Steve Lessard are all seniors who had gone nearly four years without a victory over the Panthers.