ORWIGSBURG - Dan Williams had a good feeling entering the opening round of the District 11 Class AA duals on Thursday night at Blue Mountain High School.

The Lehighton mentor liked the No. 10 seed his team drew and thought the Indians had a good chance to get by No. 7 seed Pen Argyl in the opening round.The Indians took advantage of four forfeit wins for a 24-point cushion and then got a big 7-5 decision by Tyler Cann in the final bout of the match to capture a 43-36 win over the Green Knights.Lehighton then fell into the loser's bracket after a 44-28 loss to North Schuylkill in the quarterfinals.The Indians will take on Pine Grove at 9 a.m. on Saturday at Freedom High School in Bethlehem. The Cardinals eliminated Palmerton by a 48-24 score, then went on to lose to Saucon Valley 53-17 in the other quarterfinal held at the Schuylkill County gym.First RoundLehighton-Pen ArgylLehighton took advantage of four forfeit wins for a 24-point cushion and then got a big 7-5 decision by Tyler Cann in the final bout of the match to capture a 43-36 win over the Green Knights.The win guaranteed Lehighton a trip into Saturday's competition."I thought we wrestled tough in some matches," said Williams afterwards. "We go through and work out every match before it and we got all the match ups we wanted against North Schuylkill. It's just that we didn't come through in some areas that I thought we should have."Connor Frey was the lone Lehighton wrestler to grab a win in the first seven matches against the Spartans. He picked up a 5-1 decision over C.J. Steinhilber 5-1 in their 182-pound match with a takedown, reversal and penalty point after giving up just a lone escape.Until Zach Kemmerer took to the mat at 120 against the Spartans' Shane McGrath while racking up a 16-5 major decision, the Indians were down 32-3. Kemmerer's win made it 32-7.Lehighton went on a bit of a run winning four of the last five matches. Despite pins by Tegan Durishin at 121, Joshua Gornick at 138 and Dustin Koons at 152, along with a major decision by Anthony Farano at 145, the deficit was too much for the Indians to overcome.The opening round contest against Pen Argyl went right down to the wire. And the four forfeit wins by the Tribe proved to be a big help.Ezra Neff, Kemmerer got falls, while Farano added his first of two majors on the night setting up Cann's match.Pen Argyl's Ryan Lobb scored a takedown in the first period, added a penalty point in the second period and held a 3-0 lead entering the final two minutes. Cann came alive with an escape, takedown, reversal and near fall and kept the Indians around for the quarterfinals."The win in the opener was nice," said Williams. "We wrestled them earlier in the year and it was a tight match so we knew we were going to have another one. We knew we had to go out and wrestle tough and it was nice to get that win to start.Quarterfinal roundLehighton-N. SchuylkillNorth Schuylkill took down Lehighton, winning eight out of 14 bouts. The Spartans' six wins by pin fall and two victories by major decision propelled them to a 44-28 quarterfinal round win over the Indians.Lehighton wrestlers Tegan Durishin (126), Joshua Gornick (138), and Dustin Koons (152) all picked up pin fall victories. Anthony Farano (145) and Zach Kemmerer (120) won by major decision, while Connor Frey (182) won by decision."We knew what we were going to be up against with North Schuylkill but we also in the back of our minds, even though we were the 10th seed, we had a shot. It came down to a couple of matches, but that's how it goes.First roundPalmerton-Pine GroveIn Palmerton's loss to Pine Grove, it seemed like a broken record as the Bombers gave up 24 points on four forfeits, which was just too much to overcome.The Bombers and Cardinals split 5-5 in the bouts that were wrestled, but Pine Grove moved on with the free bonus points."We knew going in that we had to wrestle perfectly," said Palmerton head coach Dave Lavin. "We gave them a lot of bonus points and it was a reach to start. But we did a lot of good things, but even in some of the matches we won, we let their guys dictate the pace of the match at some points. And certainly in some of the matches we lost, we left them control us. We put forth a good effort, but we just need to wrestle our match. We can't wait for guys to go after us, we need a game plan and go after it."Jared Mooney's pin at 160 and Zack Graver's lopsided 18-1 technical fall gave the Bombers a 11-0 lead at the start. The Cardinals ran off seven straight wins until Dan Russo came up with a 4-0 decision for the Bombers to end the drought.The Bombers other two wins came on a major decision by Josh Evans and a pin by Zach Christman.FIRST ROUNDPine Grove 48, Palmerton 24160 - Jared Mooney (P) pinned Chris Holler in 2:49170 - Zack Graver (P) tech. fall over William Carlin 18-1 (3:57)182 - Jesse Fisher (PG) dec. Matt Wolfe 12-6195 - Guy Zimmerman (PG) won by forfeit220 - EJ Herb (PG) pinned John Iles in 2:11285 - Ryan Martin (PG) pinned Alex Raub in 2:47106 - James Gately (PG) won by forfeit113 - Quentin Wolf (PG) won by forfeit120 - Danny Diaz (PG) pinned Brandon Traugher in 1:50126 - Dan Russo (P) dec. Carson Rittenbaugh 4-0132 - Marcus Kassab (PG) dec. Travis Stroup 8-2138 - Josh Evans (P) maj. dec. Jared McCabe 13-5145 - Zach Christman (P) pinned Ryan Heim in 1:26152 - Ryan Wolfe (PG) won by forfeitLehighton 43, Pen Argyl 36160 - Dustin Koons (L) won by forfeit170 - Hayden Oliver (PA) pinned Dominik Mystkowski in 1:27182 - Perry Didyoung (L) won by forfeit195 - Connor Frey (L) won by forfeit220 - Nathan Black (PA) pinned Logan Berger in 2:19285 - Brady Mutton (PA) pinned Alexander Smith in :30106 - Ezra Neff (L) pinned Austin Buskirk in 2:23113 - Zach Kemmerer (L) pinned Tanner Kootsares in :24120 - Philip Zito (PA) pinned Antonio Lorenzo in 1:53126 - Tegan Durishin (L) won by forfeit132 - James Klinger (PA) pinned Anthony Yerger in 1:00138 - Andrew Sutton (PA) won by inj. default over Joshua Gornick in 4:48145 - Anthony Farano (L) maj. dec. Stephen Beltz 9-0152 - Tyler Cann (L) dec. Ryan Lobb 7-5QUARTERFINAL ROUNDNo. Schuylkill 44, Lehighton 28170 - Austin Hummel (NS) pinned Dominik Mystkowski in 2:44182 - Connor Frey (L) dec. C.J. Steinhilber 5-1195 - Alek Hummel (NS) pinned Perry Didyoung in 1:02220 - Dane Tarantelli (NS) maj. dec. Logan Berger 10-0285 - Nathan Gadinski (NS) pinned Alexander Smith in 1:12106 - Mason Madden-Edwards (NS) maj. dec. Ezra Neff 12-0113 - Owen Boyer (NS) pinned Antonio Lorenzo in 4:40120 - Zach Kemmerer (L) maj. dec. Shane McGrath 16-5126 - Tegan Durishin (L) pinned Zach Griffin in 1:53132 - Jess Wetzel (NS) pinned Anthony Yerger in 1:00138 - Joshua Gornick (L) pinned Corey Reinoehl in 2:07145 - Anthony Farano (L) maj. dec. Joe Alexander 10-2152 - Dustin Koons (L) pinned Nick Price in :51160 - Garet Grove (NS) pinned Tyler Cann in 3:50* Lehighton deducted one team point for unsportsmanlike conduct