M-A makes quick work of the Dons

But then reality hit. The Aragon roster was gutted by graduation and head coach Carlo Altamirano has a small, inexperienced team and could only muster five wrestlers for Thursday’s season opener.

“I graduated a lot of seniors (from last year),” Altamirano said. “I have 14 guys, but we’re missing (wrestlers for the) upper weight classes.”

While a number of M-A’s top guys didn’t get to feature in a match, it was a meet that counted toward a PAL division crown, so one of the schools had to win.

The Bears figured why not them? They won four of the five varsity matches contested and when all the double forfeits in the other nine weight classes are factored in, M-A came away with a 69-51 victory.

Charles Washington, M-A’s first-year head coach who wrestled varsity for the Bears for three seasons before graduating in 2012, knows the lay of the land in the PAL, knowing only a handful of wrestlers may get matches one meet and a full lineup will wrestle the next.

“We definitely want to change that around here,” Washington said.

M-A easily won the three four matches, as Dylan Malloy (115), Julian Kim (122) and Josh Meyers (128) all won their matches by pin.

But the final two matches, at 140 and 147, provided some entertaining wrestling.

The best match of the night came in the 147-pound weight class where M-A’s Caleb Prouty and Aragon’s Basarm Shokri-Nirl engaged in a technical, tactical match, one in which Prouty prevailed, 4-3.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be that close,” said Prouty, a sophomore. “I thought it would be a blowout for me or a blowout for him.”

Shokri-Nirl led for a majority of the match but, in the final minute, Prouty got his only takedown of the match, lifting and taking Shokri-Nirl to the floor — spilling out of bounds.

But the referee ruled Prouty had gained control before going out of bounds and awarded the M-A wrestler the two points for the takedown.

Prouty then maintained his grip as Shokri-Nirl worked for the 1-point escape in the final moments that would have tied the match, but Prouty held on for the win.

The two spent a majority of the match in the middle of the mat, working to gain wrist control with a lot of hand checking. Prouty briefly lost his balance and Shokri-Nirl pounced, gaining control and two points midway through the first period. Prouty got a 1-point escape about 20 seconds later and trailed 2-1 after one period.

Prouty tied the match at 2-all with an escape after starting the second round in the down position, but Shokri-Nirl got an escape of his own to take a 3-2 lead early in the third period.

Prouty looked poised to take the lead, when he gained control and took Shokri-Nirl down — but it was determined it occurred out of bounds and no points were awarded.

It merely set up Prouty’s match-winning takedown about a minute later.

“Once it got close, I said, ‘I really want this,’” Prouty said. “It felt really good (to get the win).”

Aragon picked up its only win on the mat in the previous match, the 140-pound match between Dons’ junior Carl Kohnke and M-A freshman Cyrus Durham.

Kohnke controlled Durham for most of the match. He had a pair of 2-point takedowns over the first two periods and earned a fifth point when Durham was penalized for stalling in the second period.

Kohnke got a pair of 1-point escapes in the third period, sandwiched around Durham’s only points of the match on a takedown as Kohnke went on to a 7-2 victory.

“I just did my best. I’ve been training really hard,” Kohnke said. “I knew I would get a match. [Mat time] is very important to me because this is my sport, I only wrestle.”