No. 6 McDonogh beat No. 3 Archbishop Spalding on the Cavaliers' home mat Wednesday night, but the Eagles had plenty of help from their host.
Spalding forfeited three matches - at 112, 189 and 215 pounds - giving McDonogh 18 points, but still challenged the Eagles before they pulled out a 36-35 victory with a decision in the final match of the night, a 4-1 win by freshman Travis Wood (152).
"It's at the point in the season where both our teams have injuries and sicknesses," McDonogh coach Pete Welch said. "They forfeited three weight classes, but we had kids overcome problems to wrestle tonight, too. But Spalding is a good team, and their good guys beat ours.
"The big match was our 135 losing by a technical fall and not getting pinned."
It meant a one-point swing, the difference between a win and a tie.
Spalding junior Will Switzer thought he had McDonogh's Matt Zafrir pinned at least twice during the 135-pound bout that ended with a 19-4 decision for Switzer, but the call never came.
"I'm kind of disappointed," said Switzer, who like several of his teammates wrestled up a class. "I really wanted to get the pin and I thought I did, but I guess I couldn't hold it long enough [for the referee to get in position to make the call]. But we had a good match. We can't make excuses because we had to forfeit a few matches. They beat us, and we lost."
Spalding forfeited at 189 because it doesn't have a wrestler in the class. It gave away the match at 112 because its starter didn't make weight. And its starter at 215, Brady Gaynor, broke his arm over the weekend.
"Will did everything he could to pin his opponent at 135," Spalding coach Mike Laidley said. "A couple of times, we all thought he had him. But it was a close match overall. They had to win at 152 to beat us, and we thought our kid had a chance."
Spalding dropped to 16-4 overall and now has two losses in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference, and Laidley said he thinks that eliminates the Cavaliers from title contention.
Discuss this story and others in our talk forums Most recent high school sports talk forum topics: More sports talk forums: Orioles | Ravens | Pro Sports | College | Lacrosse | High School | Outdoors Note: In-story commenting has been temporarily disabled due to technical issues. We are working to correct the issue and will bring back this feature in the future. In the meantime, please use our talk forums to discuss stories.