The varsity wrestling team competed against Wyoming Seminary for the #1 spot in the country this past Friday. The night started off with two exhibition matches, where Jocelyn O’Keeffe ’24 and Morgan Edwards ’24 wrestled against two members of Wyoming Seminary’s women’s team.
The main event kicked off at 7:00 p.m., where Tyler Dekraker ’26 (106), ranked #7 in the country, took on a Wyoming Seminary opponent who was ranked #8 in the country. After a hard-fought match, Wyoming Seminary was up 3-0. Leo Deluca ‘25 (113) gave Blair back the lead after a win by tech fall. The Wyoming Seminary Blue Knights won the next two matches, both by decision making the score 9-5.
Wins by Matt Lopes ’24 (132) and Billy Dekraker ’25 (138) left the score at 12-9. Logan Rozynski ’24 (144), a new junior at Blair after transferring from Wyoming Seminary, went out on the mat with energy. The scoreless first period left the crowd nervous, but Logan came out and pinned his opponent in the second period, giving the Bucs momentum.
Will Henckel '25 carried the momentum into his match, winning by decision with a score of 5-1. The team score was now 20-8. At 157, Wyoming Seminary took the win by technical fall. Lorenzo Norman ’23 (165) won his match by decision (3-0).
Freshman, Peter Snyder ’26 (175), wrestled the #15 ranked wrestler at his weight class, leaving everyone on the edge of their seats. Forcing the bout into an overtime period, Peter took the win in sudden victory, another big win for Blair. Wyoming Sem pinned their way through the 190 and 215 lbs matches, leaving the score tied 26-26. Carter Neves ’24 (285) was ready to fight for the win, but Wyoming Sem decided to forfeit their heavyweight, giving Blair the win in the final match with a score of 32-26.
With this victory, Blair secured their claim to being the #1 ranked team in the country. Their next match will be at Bergen Catholic this Saturday, January 28, at 2:00 p.m.