It probably wasn't fair what Jersey Shore head coach Shawn Weaver asked from the middle of his lineup early in the season, but it was necessary.
The Bulldogs were still trying to find their footing as a couple key contributors returned from injuries. So he all but required the dangerous quintet of wrestlers in the middle of his lineup to get bonus points nearly every time on the mat.
It was the way for Jersey Shore to tread water until it got to full strength. In hindsight, it really wasn't fair to put those individuals in that position, but it's turned out to be a benefit for the Bulldogs. They'll go into today's first round of the PIAA Team Tournament having been battle tested and feeling comfortable in going on the mat looking for bonus points.
After 16 dual meets in which those five Kaiden Brungard, McKenzie Kershner, Dylan Shields, Elliot Packer and Ryan Harer have all wrestled, they've gone a combined 64-16 (80 percent). So when they went 5-0 in the District 4 Duals final against Selinsgrove on Saturday, it wasn't so much a surprise. It's become almost expected of this group.
The Bulldogs' Austin White gave Jersey Shore a lead with his win at 132 pounds against the Seals, and it started a run of six consecutive wins. There was an air of confidence among the Bulldogs when White pulled out the win at 132 because the team knew what it had coming up was a quintet of hammers that have been driving nails home at an impressive rate since the start of the new year.
"At that point, we knew with what we had up top, with (Jake) Caputo and Shields still ready to go, that we were basically golden," Brungard said after winning the district title.
The heart of Jersey Shore's lineup is going to be tested this weekend like it hasn't been tested all season. And it starts with tonight's first-round matchup with District 12 champion LaSalle College. The Explorers feature two top-five ranked wrestlers that will run right through the heart of the Bulldogs' lineup.
Senior Matt Cimato is a returning state third-place finisher at 145 pounds for LaSalle College, and senior Casey Kent is Class AAA's top-ranked 152-pounder who is a three-time state qualifier and former third-place finisher with 160 career wins.
But that doesn't change the Bulldogs' opinions. They know where the strength of their lineup lies. And while bonus points will be tough to come by in this tournament, it doesn't mean they still won't need to get any.
"We're pretty confident when we get to that part of our lineup," Kershner said. "We have a lot of experience there and we all train together to get better."
Jersey Shore doesn't feature a single state-ranked wrestler in pennsylvaniawrestlingrankings.com's state-wide lists of the 14 weight classes, but this weekend might be the opportunity the group needs to make a name for themselves beyond just District 4. The five have a combined 96-35 record this year.
But they've been at their best since the turn of the calendar to January. That's when the injuries that forced Jersey Shore to forfeit four weights in a key HAC-I loss to Williamsport in December began to heal. Instead of having the group just as much as two weight classes up to get winnable matchups, the Bulldogs finally were able to settle into an everyday lineup.
The five in the middle of the lineup scored 138 total bonus points in the 16 dual meets in which they've all wrestled this year. That's an average of 8.6 bonus points per match. They've lost more bouts than they've won in a match just once, and that was still a regular-season win over Selinsgrove.
Eleven times in those 16 matches, the five wrestlers have won at least four bouts, and six times they swept all five. Also, in six of those 16 matches the five registered at least 11 bonus points. Think of it this way, that's scoring a minimum of 26 points in just five of the 14 bouts.
"Maybe it's not fair to those guys, but we've come to expect it," Weaver said following Shore's win over Selinsgrove. "Those guys are just really, really good finishers. They usually get the job done and get the fall.
"Early in the year I think it got us in a good habit because we have to get wins from those guys giving up some weight."
And now that they're not giving up weight, they've become even more fun to watch. Hershey is about to find that out.
