The narrative for several programs coming out of Saturday's 7th Annual Anthracite Duals sounded about the same satisfied, but still looking for a little bit more in order to take that next step to achieve even greater success.

The event, which offers competition from a wide-range of schools, typically marks a turn to what will be a critical stretch for many squads, with several significant league matches and the postseason looming on the horizon.The Times News area was well represented, with Lehighton, Palmerton and host Panther Valley all competing in the 14-team event, which was won by the Schuylkill League's North Schuylkill for the second consecutive year.The Indians posted the best mark among the three TN schools at 4-1 in what was a slightly altered tournament. Rather than having pools as in years past, all teams wrestled five times, with the best record and/or point differential deciding the champion.Lehighton started strong, going 3-0 after the first thee rounds with wins over Montgomery (45-28), Williams Valley (53-30) and Milton (42-32).But Midd West handed the Indians a 50-28 setback in round four before Lehighton rebounded with a 45-23 triumph over Wilson in the fifth and final round."It was nice to go 4-1, but we had a little bit of a hiccup (against Midd West) and that prevented us from going 5-0, which I thought we should have," said Lehighton head coach Dan Williams. "I'm happy that we got the four wins that we did."But again, there's always something to work on and improve, and a tournament like this gives you the chance to see that."The Indians (6-3) had a number of impressive performances throughout the afternoon, with Connor Frey and Dylan Schock each going 5-0. In addition to Frey and Schock, Zachary Kemmerer, Tegan Durishin and Tyler Cann all did well to finish at 4-1.Palmerton and Panther Valley both finished the day at 3-2, matching their records from last year's event.The Blue Bombers bounced back from a 48-24 loss to Tri Valley in their first round match by winning their next three bouts against Williamson (39-36), Pius X (48-12) and Montgomery (48-26) before falling to Halifax, 48-35, in their final contest.The victories were also the first this season for Palmerton (3-6), something head coach Justin Petersen hopes his squad can build on moving forward."I thought it went well," Petersen said. "We got some teams that matched up well with us in terms of forfeits, and we didn't have to give up as many as we normally do."I'm happy with how we did. Almost every one of our guys finished (with a record) above .500, in terms of their individual matches, which is always a plus. We had some younger guys that really stepped up in some of their matches by not giving up bonus points."The guys wrestled some tough matches, in victory and defeat, and I thought it was a good tournament for us overall that should give us a lot to look forward to."Zachary Graver and Jarred Mooney both went 5-0 for the Blue Bombers, while John Iles compiled a record of 4-1.Panther Valley opened the afternoon with a 43-36 triumph over Williamson before suffering a 42-24 loss to Midd West in the following match.The Panthers alternated wins and losses over their final three rounds, defeating Halifax 54-24 before falling to Penns Valley 50-15 and finishing the tournament with a dominant 60-15 victory over Williams Valley.Panther Valley (6-5) had a number of solid results individually, highlighted by Ali Capobianco's perfect 5-0 day. Dylan Moyer, Tanner Kennedy, Gary Goodhile and Grant Lorkowski were all 4-1 by the end of the event.Working with, and constantly reshuffling, a lineup that's been hit hard by injuries, the showing left PV coach Tim Robb feeling good about his squad's prospects heading into the latter part of the season."We're just not having a lot of luck at this point," Robb noted. "Things just aren't really falling into place, with some guys that are out hurt and others that are out sick."I'm not disappointed at all with the effort when we do wrestle. We're looking to peak at the end of the season, and I think we're getting there."And days like this give each team a chance to get a little bit closer to reaching those goals."You have to take what happened today and use that to get you ready for the rest of the season," said Williams. "We have some real tough matches coming up, so what we'll try to do is take what we saw today back to the (practice) room to fix some of our mistakes, but also to continue some of the things that we've been doing well."