His hand raised after winning his fourth Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association title yesterday, Josh Fitch, McDonogh's 140-pound senior, showed little emotion.
His businesslike approach was typical for the No. 1 Eagles, who sent 10 wrestlers to the finals and came away with seven champions at Mount St. Joseph to comfortably win their third straight MIAA tournament crown.
Junior Curtis Holmes (145) won his third league title; sophomore Nick Schenk (112) and senior Alex Pagnotta (189) won their second; and Albert Woody (135), Kramer Whitelaw (160) and Doug Schenk (215) won for the first time as McDonogh defeated runner-up Mount St. Joseph by a 288.5-223 margin. Leading the way for the host Gaels was sophomore Bobby Bowman (152), whose upset over the Eagles' Shane Milam earned him the Outstanding Wrestler Trophy.
Fitch became the third wrestler to win four MIAA championships, joining Mount St. Joseph grads Bruce Dulski and Mack Lewnes. Next up for Fitch is a chance to win four state titles when McDonogh hosts the Maryland Independent Schools tournament next weekend.
"This is a great accomplishment, and I feel very good," said Fitch, who earned a second-period pin against John Carroll's Eric Hart in the final. "I came out here and did what I wanted to do. But I'm already looking forward to next weekend."
Bowman scored a first-period takedown and then held off Milam to grind out a 3-2 decision.
"I made him wrestle my match instead of his - kind of slowed the pace down, and I did what I needed to do to come out with the win," Bowman said.
Third-place Archbishop Curley (197 points) got a second straight title from Tyler Scarinzi (125), who overcame a sore knee to claim a 6-4 overtime decision over McDonogh's Eric Filipowicz.
The season to this point has clearly belonged to McDonogh, though.
"We've been doing it long enough at McDonogh that we've been the other way," coach Pete Welch said. "I've seen Mount St. Joe do that, and I've seen Archbishop Curley do that, so it's nice to have our turn doing it. To be honest, once we got here, I haven't had any time to really think about it, but it is pretty impressive. The kids really wrestled well."
glenn.graham@baltsun.com